Adventures of a Climate Change Champion (From Campaign Series)

Adventures of a Climate Change Champion

11:58am Friday 25th January 2008

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Hi readers.

My name is James Fletcher, I am 16 and currently attend the sixth form at Lewis School in Pengam.

Welcome to my column which I will be writing every month. Why? Well on 21 January 2008 I was announced of one of six young Climate Change Champions for Wales .

The press launch was conducted at the Welsh Assembly¹s Senedd Building in Cardiff Bay. Among the VIPs at the event were First Minister Rhodri Morgan and Environment Minister Jane Davidson. I secured my role as a ŒChampion¹ by submitting a newspaper report on how my school and friends could reduce their carbon footprint. I then attended the semi-final stage interviews in Cardiff and was lucky enough to be accepted as one of the Œsustainable six¹.

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This monthly column will follow what your local ambassador will be doing to help both adults and children to reduce the size of their carbon footprint. Firstly, let me explain the term Œcarbon footprint¹. This is the amount of carbon dioxide that your everyday actions leak into the atmosphere. One good example is that washing your clothes at 30oC rather than 40oC will save around 350,000 tonnes of carbon emissions ­equal to the amount released if someone drove around the Earth 5000 times!

After reading this column make sure you recycle the newspaper. It could be made into kitchen towels, toilet tissue or even next month¹s edition of the column!

This month I will start my year-long journey as one of the six Welsh champions. In the February half term, I will be travelling to The Netherlands. This will be a chance to bring the ideas from one of the best countries for sustainable development back to Wales.

Thank you for reading the first edition of my column and I look forward to telling you all about Amsterdam next month.

James' Top Tip:

Try to install at least three energy saving lightbulbs in your home. If everyone in Wales did this, we¹d save around £10million on our electricity bills each year.

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