"One Voice in a Billion: Changing the Climate in China"

Bryan Walsh
May 16, 2008
TIME

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Excerpts:

Like a lot of Americans, Taylor Francis can trace his global warming conversion back to the day he walked into a movie theater and watched An Inconvenient Truth. Before he saw the documentary, Francis says, he knew climate change was a problem, but not something that could end civilization. "I was stunned," he says now. "I came away from the theater determined to do something about this."


For most of us, that might have meant switching to more efficient light bulbs, or maybe if we were particularly motivated, buying a hybrid car. Francis went a bit further. In December 2006, along with 200 other people, Francis traveled to Al Gore's home city of Nashville — otherwise known as the new Mecca of environmentalism — to be taught as a global warming educator by Al Gore himself, as part of the Climate Project, a nonprofit that promotes public awareness. Fourteen years old at the time, Francis was the youngest person ever trained by Gore. Back home in San Francisco he delivered a customized version of the most famous PowerPoint presentation ever developed, and since, he's given his talk to nearly 10,000 people, mostly high school students. Francis persuades his teenage peers to realize that global warming, far from being a threat of the distant future, will directly affect them. "This problem is my problem," says Francis, who speaks with a precision that reminds me of, well, Gore, without the Tennessee twang. "It's not abstract for us. The effects will be felt in our lifetime."

OK, so, after doing the hard work of educating apathetic high schoolers about the dangers of climate change, Francis has done his part, right? Not quite. As he researched global warming further, Francis came to the same realization that many climate experts have: while the United States is by far the world's biggest carbon emitter historically, it's China that truly holds the key to slowing climate change. China, which just passed the U.S. as the world's top greenhouse-gas emitter on an annual basis, will be putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other nation for the foreseeable future. Fail to convince the Chinese of Gore's inconvenient truth, and the game will be lost. The best targets, Francis knew, would be Chinese his own age. "Working with China is so important," he says. "The young are a source of possibility."

So it was off to China — first, in a test trip last summer, where Francis taught Chinese fifth graders about global warming for an hour a day for three days. "They had more questions than I had answers," he says. Once he got back to the U.S., Francis — who at 16 seems to possess a level of enthusiasm and organization those twice his age would envy — began setting up a more substantial journey to China. Next month, he'll be embarking on a tour of the country that will take him to Shanghai and Beijing, where he'll be addressing students at high schools, universities and international schools in China's most important cities. He'll also be meeting with some of the country's more prominent greens, like Zheng Shigrong, the billionaire founder of the solar panel manufacturer Suntech. It's all being arranged by members of China's Minister of Environmental Protection (Francis's teacher in San Francisco has impressive contacts).

Presenting in China will be a challenge, and not just because Francis will have to make use of a translator. The Chinese view the politics of climate change in a fundamentally different way than much of the developed world. We've had our time to grow rapidly, pollute and clean up, but China is just starting. We think of greenhouse gas emissions as something perhaps easy to limit — just get those better lights and better cars. But for China, those vastly accelerating greenhouse gas emissions are just another measurement of how life is getting better for more and more Chinese in the cities: more cars, more electricity, more gadgets, more stuff, all of which carry a greenhouse gas cost. Asking China to limit greenhouse gas emissions even as its GDP continues to grow at nearly double-digit rates is like asking them to give up the good life they're just beginning to taste. It's not going to happen — and yet to avert dangerous climate change, it has to happen. That's the paradox of global warming politics.

It's a bit much to ask Taylor Francis to untie that Gordian knot, but he's trying his best. Francis says he'll make the pocketbook argument that China's astonishing levels of pollution are already damaging the country's bottom line. "There's an estimation that China's environmental problems are already costing their economy 10% of GDP a year," he says. "The economic costs are immense and they will only get bigger." That much is known in China, and although the country gets a deservedly bad rap for its pollution — all those Beijing Olympics jokes — the truth is that there is a serious movement going on today to green China. "China stunned the world with its economic growth," says Francis. "Now there's a chance for China to show the world another model of development — green growth." It needs help, and it needs young people who are enthusiastic about saving the Earth — like Taylor Francis.

"Preaching the Word of Gore"

Aaron Kinney
May 19, 2007

One of Gore’s youngest climate change disciples is Taylor Francis, a freshman at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough.  The 15-year old has delivered more than a dozen presentations to Peninsula audiences since attending a two-day seminar last December in Nashville, Tenn.
In between homework and classes, Taylor is helping to carry out Gore’s initiative, dubbed The Climate Project, the goal of which is to spread the message of the film — the urgent need to tackle the effects of climate change — from movie theaters and DVD players into the schools, church groups, clubs and other gathering places of American society.

Like most eight graders, Taylor hadn’t paid much attention to global warming—then he saw Gore’s movie last year.  Now he speaks fluently about warming trends, isotope signatures and the future of California’s agricultural industry.

“It wasn’t Topic A on my mind and when I saw the movie it was just eye-opening,” Taylor said. “It really inspired me.”

For his part, Taylor has delivered presentations to 13 audiences and nearly 2,000 people.  He’s spoken at several Peninsula schools, including Sacred Heart School in Atherton and Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley.

Taylor took the stage dressed like a Silicon Valley executive.  Tall and thin, his light-brown hair slightly mussed, he wore jeans and a striped collared shirt under a blue sports jacket.

Taylor localized his slideshow by talking about the effects global warming is expected to have on the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides water to most of the state, and California’s agricultural industry.  He also discussed the impact of rising sea levels on coastal communities.

As always, he ended his talk on an upbeat note and with a call to action, offering audience members myriad small ways to conserve energy, from using more efficient light bulbs to getting an energy audit and insulating their water heaters. 

Francis is optimistic about the prospects of blunting climate change’s effects.  And he smoothly parries arguments, whether economic or scientific, that global warming skeptics present as reasons not to undertake fundamental policy changes. 

“I think too many people view this economically as a burden and I really think that solving the climate crisis is an opportunity,” said Taylor, who will travel to China this summer to talk to students about global warming.

“It’s time to stop using debate as an excuse for inaction because the clock is ticking,” he said.  “Whenever America has decided to fully confront a problem, when the weight of the American people is put behind an effort, we can really effect change rapidly and we can accomplish great things.”

"Preaching the Word of Gore"

Aaron Kinney
May 19, 2007

One of Gore’s youngest climate change disciples is Taylor Francis, a freshman at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough.  The 15-year old has delivered more than a dozen presentations to Peninsula audiences since attending a two-day seminar last December in Nashville, Tenn.
In between homework and classes, Taylor is helping to carry out Gore’s initiative, dubbed The Climate Project, the goal of which is to spread the message of the film — the urgent need to tackle the effects of climate change — from movie theaters and DVD players into the schools, church groups, clubs and other gathering places of American society.

Like most eight graders, Taylor hadn’t paid much attention to global warming—then he saw Gore’s movie last year.  Now he speaks fluently about warming trends, isotope signatures and the future of California’s agricultural industry.

“It wasn’t Topic A on my mind and when I saw the movie it was just eye-opening,” Taylor said. “It really inspired me.”

For his part, Taylor has delivered presentations to 13 audiences and nearly 2,000 people.  He’s spoken at several Peninsula schools, including Sacred Heart School in Atherton and Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley.

Taylor took the stage dressed like a Silicon Valley executive.  Tall and thin, his light-brown hair slightly mussed, he wore jeans and a striped collared shirt under a blue sports jacket.

Taylor localized his slideshow by talking about the effects global warming is expected to have on the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides water to most of the state, and California’s agricultural industry.  He also discussed the impact of rising sea levels on coastal communities.

As always, he ended his talk on an upbeat note and with a call to action, offering audience members myriad small ways to conserve energy, from using more efficient light bulbs to getting an energy audit and insulating their water heaters. 

Francis is optimistic about the prospects of blunting climate change’s effects.  And he smoothly parries arguments, whether economic or scientific, that global warming skeptics present as reasons not to undertake fundamental policy changes. 

“I think too many people view this economically as a burden and I really think that solving the climate crisis is an opportunity,” said Taylor, who will travel to China this summer to talk to students about global warming.

“It’s time to stop using debate as an excuse for inaction because the clock is ticking,” he said.  “Whenever America has decided to fully confront a problem, when the weight of the American people is put behind an effort, we can really effect change rapidly and we can accomplish great things.”

"Move Over, Al Gore"
Menlo Park Teen Spreads Word About Global Warming

By David Boyce

Link

If scientists are curious about the existence of a public-speaking gene, the genome of 15-year-old Taylor Francis of Menlo Park might be a good place to start an investigation. Taylor, one of 250 graduates of a three-day seminar in Tennessee in December led by Al Gore, gave a presentation at the Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley on May 15 that included slides familiar to anyone who has seen the Al Gore documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth." This was his 13th talk in the Bay Area.

Before a packed chapel of Priory students in grades 6 though 12, the high school freshman, without notes, gave an energetic and polished 35-minute multimedia presentation filled with inconvenient truths, and was rewarded with at least a half minute of sustained applause.

A particularly inconvenient truth may be that the United States has a major role in warming the planet by producing 30 percent of all greenhouse gases, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Taylor homed in on this fact in his presentation: "We caused it; it is our responsibility to solve it," he told the Priory students. "The (poor nations) didn't cause the problem. The richer nations use the most energy."

"Global warming is a social justice issue," he continued, adding that disproportionate impacts — insect-borne diseases, drought, flooding, food shortages — are expected to have their greatest impact in the developing world.

"We're going to see major suffering," he said. "Long term, generally when species do stupid things, there are consequences."

The solution, he said, begins with the individual. "Everything we do every day contributes to this problem. Everything you do every day can contribute to solving this problem."

Taylor's remarks seem to have resonated with Julian French, a sixth- grader at the Priory and a resident of Mountain View. "It's the first problem in the world that's going to take everyone on the planet to rise up and do their best," he told the Almanac. "It's going to hit and it's going to hit hard."

A two- or three-degree rise in global temperatures may be the extent of it if we act now, Taylor said. If we don't change our habits, scientists predict the planet will a reach point of no return in 15 years leading to catastrophic increases of six to eight degrees, he said.

If we act now, he said, "we'll solve the problem, we'll avert the worst-case scenario, and it will open up a lot of opportunities for business."

What to do?

Step one, Taylor said, is replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. He cited a familiar statistic: If everyone in the country replaces one bulb, it will result in energy savings equivalent to taking a million cars off the road.

"I'm definitely changing my light bulbs," Leslie Barkman, a Priory sophomore from Redwood City, told the Almanac. "I didn't really know that (global warming) was that big of a problem."

Alternative fuels such as ethanol are another big step, Taylor said. In the Midwest, corn converted to ethanol can, in a 10 percent solution, extend gasoline with little or no impact on vehicle performance. While ethanol emits carbon dioxide, its CO2 was absorbed from the atmosphere recently rather than millions of years ago as is the case with fossil fuels.

U.S. drivers burned 140 billion gallons of gasoline in 2004, according to the U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Meanwhile in 2005, total ethanol production was 4 billion gallons, made from 1.4 billion bushels of corn grain — 13 percent of the U.S. crop — the Energy Office said.

Ethanol production, using 2004 figures, would have to jump to 14 billion gallons — a 250 percent increase involving a much greater percentage of U.S. corn — to convert all gasoline to a 10 percent ethanol solution.

In part because of its impact on food stocks, "corn-based ethanol is a really, really, really bad idea," Taylor told the students. Cellulosic ethanol is better, he said. It's made from grasses that grow in harsher soils and its production requires about half the energy needed for corn, according to a 2003 study by the National Commission on Energy Policy.

One student asked if new fuels would force everyone to buy new cars. "We really need to shift the whole basis of our transportation system, so that in many ways, our fuels won't be compatible" with existing cars, Taylor replied.

Teens can also have an impact with the $245 billion they spend each year, he added. He recommends recycling, buying locally produced products, and favoring products that use less packaging.