Student creates Web site to raise environmental awareness

posted January 26, 2009

by Mikaela Kenrick of Campanile

Billy Csete

The Lorax Alliance, established by junior Isaac Plant, looks to promote environmental change.

For most people, "being green" means carpooling, recycling and turning off all unnecessary lights, but Palo Alto High School junior Isaac Plant goes beyond these standards to help protect the environment by creating a new Web site to help local environmental awareness groups.

"I started being active in helping the environment about a year and a half ago," Plant said. "I wanted to make a difference."

Plant recently started a Web site called the Lorax Alliance.

The Web site is a forum that allows local environmental groups to view each other's profiles and projects and to communicate with each other.

"There are two environmental groups at Paly, which is great," Plant said. "The problem with the groups is that they don't talk to each other."

Using the Lorax Alliance, Paly's Earth Club and Green Team can communicate effectively with each other and with some of Stanford's groups.

"Anyone can go to the site and create a member profile for themselves or their group," Plant said. "All they need to do is submit some general information, and then they can find other groups and message them."

Plant believes that such communication is necessary if environmental groups want to accomplish a big project at Paly.

"If a group wanted to, for example, install solar roofs at Paly, they're not going to be able to do that on their own," Plant said. "By communicating and working together, much more can be achieved."

Plant started this Web site as a project for a group called the California Climate Champions, which is sponsored by the California Environmental Protection Association (EPA).

The group is comprised of 15 high school and college students. Their job is to develop local projects to raise awareness about climate change, and also to help and encourage their peers and communities become involved. Plant applied and was accepted to the group over a year ago.

"There are Climate Champion groups in many different countries," Plant said. "Three students from my group recently went to Japan and London to discuss environmental issues."

Plant first became involved in the group after attending a Green Trade Show. Since then, Plant and his peers have conducted environmentally friendly projects, held meetings and attended conferences.

Plant and the Climate Champions even attended a conference, at which Plant met and discussed climate change with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"[Composting] is a simple concept, but it really helps," Plant said. "It led into a project where we tried to replace Styrofoam with material that can be composted."

Although this project was never finished, Plant still believes that composting is an easy and sure way to help the environment. The Lorax Alliance, however, remains Plant's main project.

"My goal is to have the Web site operational to public data," Plant said. "I just want it to get out there."

Since the Climate Champions are technically a corporation, the Lorax Alliance may soon be tax exempt, which can help them save money for future projects.

"Another long-term goal is to raise funding," Plant said. "Raised money can go to general costs, like hosting the site."

Climate Champion projects can also be funded by donations. The 11th Hour Project has helped the Climate Champions with donations in the past. Plant's stepmother, Amy Rao, is the president of The 11th Hour Project, an organization devoted to raising awareness of climate change and encouraging the community to become involved in helping.

"We do a lot of research on climate change," Rao said. "We network with environmentalists and work with them to create projects to get the information out to the public."

The 11th Hour Project has produced many films and documentaries about climate change, such as Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." They also work with other environmental groups such as Green for All, which trains high school graduates who are going into blue collar work how to find green jobs, like building solar panels. The 11th Hour Project also supports a group called The Regeneration Project, which speaks about climate change from a religious perspective.

The 11th Hour Project seeks to advocate action against climate change through many different methods. Rao believes that climate change is one of the biggest issues in our modern world.

"Climate change causes a shortage of natural resources, which causes a shortage of food and water, and this affects the population," Rao said. "I'm an environmentalist because I am a humanitarian, and if we wait long enough, there will be no humanity left."

Rao said she believes that Plant is a very helpful addition to the Climate Champions

"He is very passionate about the environment," Rao said. "He understands how serious climate change is."

Rao said that Plant has good and innovative ideas about how to help the environment. He reads about climate change during his spare time and is planning to become a vegetarian.

"Isaac [Plant] really thinks about the environment deeply and can communicate the problem to the younger generation in a way that I can't," Rao said.

With the funding for his project, Plant has high hopes for the Lorax Alliance to continue to support the many dedicated environmental groups and clubs at Paly.