Help Janani, Grade 9, support climate change and SDG Forum

Hi - my name is Janani, I'm a 9th Grade student and I'm incredibly passionate about fighting climate change.

Ever since I was little, the inevitable doom of our planet has been hanging like a dark cloud over my head, constantly enveloping my thoughts. In my opinion, I find it outrageous how people ignore it and cast it off as ‘fake news’ or ‘irrelevant.’ Ignorance is one of the leading causes of climate change. The ignorance of humans is causing irreparable damage to our planet and its inhabitants. I have been lucky enough to have the privilege of travelling to distant mountains and fields, and it breaks my heart that the once-majestic glaciers which covered the land will soon be reduced to small rivers and streams within the next four years.

My dream is to create a carbon-neutral world, where going zero waste or being vegan isn’t uncommon—a world with clean air and clean oceans for the next generation and so on to live in.

So I decided to make a change. Do my part. I was inspired by the many leaders of today’s generation who have stepped up and taken action like Greta Thunberg or Jamie Margolin. Young activists like them give me hope that our world will be able to breathe again.

I found Radha Mehta, who has built the SDG Forum, a global forum for young leaders who are passionate about climate change. You can learn more about the forum in this video here. Radha is a 10th-grade student from The Harker School in San Jose. The SDG forum is perfect for students like me who care deeply about our planet. It helps people come together to lead bold and innovative solutions to fight the climate crisis.

Having a platform where one can contact and collaborate with other passionate youth to brainstorm ideas and work on projects could push this next generation to take action. It also helps students gain inspiration from the contributions of others and motivates them to make a difference. When a student logs on to the SDG forum they are greeted with practical information on how to start a project and where the world is now with regards to the Sustainable Development Goals. We also plan to have weekly zoom meetings and interviews with successful climate change activists and entrepreneurs.

We hope that launching the SDG forum in schools across India will inspire young students to build powerful technologies and solutions to tackle climate change.

I, myself have developed an extension which helps people keep track of the emissions produced by their commutes, whether it be a simple car ride to work or a flight that travels half-way across the world. It is a simple way to track your carbon footprint and also offers an option to donate money for trees, and offset your carbon output onto our planet. This way, you can take action and contribute positively to increasing global temperatures.

You can download the extension here: jananiacharya.com/extension. The extension uses your activity on Google Maps and Google Flights to tell you your carbon footprint, in real terms (eg: pounds of cool burned, hours of home energy use and number of trees you can plant to offset your footprint)

I would be extremely honoured if you could feature my chrome extension as well so more people can download it and become aware of their carbon footprint and how to offset it.

Regards,

Janani