[captions made possible by kcet television] >> today on "earth focus," children's book author lynn cherry captures youth making positive changes for the earth in her original film series "young voices for the planet." coming up on "earth focus." >> the mountains of maryland, lynn cherry spends many of her days over a drawing table. she has been writing and illustrating children's books for over 30 years. >> the most popular is the great

tree, and that's the tale of the amazon rain forest in which a man goes down to the forest and cuts down a tree and all the animals whispering in his ear while he's sleeping and he wakes up and he has an epiphany and he doesn't cut the tree down. and it's about power for one person to do good or harm. >> lending her talent as an artist, lynn has devoted much of her recent work to climate change, even publishing a book specifically designed for children and parents. >> i think that my interest in the environment grew out of my love for nature. i had an experience when i was a little kid where i had these woods that i loved and i came pack and they were bulldozing it. they completely destroyed it. it was a really traumatic experience and that's when i began thinking the adults don't really know what they're thinking. i began to question. when i was first illustrating children's books and i would go out and i would talk to kids

about the rain forest or about rivers or about endangered species, sometimes they get really upset. sometimes they would cry. and i realize this isn't really being very effective. i came to realize that if i shared with them success stories of other kids and as i'm traveling around the country, there are so many kids coming up to me and saying we saved this tract of land or we cleaned up our local river. these stories, these are really powerful. and i realize when kids are engaged like that, that's the gift i wanted to give them. i wanted to show kids that they had power. and i could do that simply by sharing their stories, what they were doing. >> and sharing those stories effectively meant going beyond books to films that can easily be seen online. her series, "young voices for the planet," shows how young people can make a global difference.

>> i'll race you! come back. let's to the creek. >> we went down two hills. >> do you hear that? that's the broad shoulder hawk. it's really close. do you want to go find it? come on. let's go this way. >> i love birds because they're so interesting. they are beautiful. they all have personalities. i think the reason that a lot of

people have chosen birds as the symbol of the environment is because they have a sense of freedom. they can fly. they own the air. >> my dad has a family that lives on the coast of the gulf of mexico. those beaches are beautiful. or at least they were. the animals there were amazing. the -- it was going back to them. and the brown pelicans. and the gray her win who has -- heron who has become my best friend. she will swallow the fish head-first. >> catastrophic disaster at sea. a column of fire blasting into the sky. the explosion happened aboard a

mobile offshore drilling unit called the deep water horizon. >> more than 175 million gallons of oil have spewed into the gulf. >> when i first heard about the oil spill, you know, it broke my heart. >> my dad and my grandfather were talking. >> olivia heard that it was spilling into the gulf. >> they were as angry as could be because they grew up loving those pristine beaches and those waters and seen those birds. >> after we spoke to my father-in-law, we had dinner and olivia, i had never seen her so upset. >> i started breaking down crying at the table and i couldn't help it. it's the thought that was running through my head was it's nesting season for the birds. what are we going to do?

>> she knew immediately that the brown pelicans would be feeding their babies, that they would not leave their nests. >> i knew those birds were going to be affected and some of them won't make it. thinking about it, that whole night, i decided to write a letter. >> it was signed 11 years old and would like to help. >> the letter basically said i will do 500 drawings for people who donate, they would get drawings. and who most? maybe i'll raise $200. i'll try. i've drawn ever since i was a little girl and ever since i could hold a pencil. >> the donations started a couple of weeks after the explosion of the rig. >> the drawings were called for. it took me three months to

finish them. [laughter] >> it was such a media whirlwind. >> first, it went to the mobile press register. then it spread to the u.k. >> "the guardian" u.k. published an article saying school shames b.p. from there, it went viral. >> and then it was going crazy. my mother was getting like 100 e-mails an hour. >> belgian newspapers, italian tv. >> my mom was having a heart attack. >> "people." >> 144 million people have seen my story two months. 144 million people. it tells you people love to help but they just don't know how. that's why i think they need a

role model like a youth that says even a child could do it, so could i. i could make a difference. >> her illustrations are just beautiful. they really are. 11-year-old girl. what's really astonishing is how that message that kids can make a difference made global big time. and that was so important. yes, the $200,000 that cleaned off all those hundreds of birds, that was really great but also that kids now know millions of kids now know that kids can make a big difference. >> olivia encouraged us to meet with our representatives in washington, d.c. to advocate for alternative energy and the birds . we actually met with ken salazar. >> we should stop offshore drilling. stop relying on other countries. have you ever seen a solar panel break down and it ends the whole

eco-system and destroys the whole way of life for people and animals? have you ever heard of a solar sill? you don't have to do what i did. but everything that you do for our planet helps. >> she just sees the big picture and she has the love for the birds. she understands that she has the power to maybe influence the way we allow oil companies to pollute. and she knows that there's a bigger policy issues and that we need to support renewable energy legislatively through congressional mandate. >> i've always enjoyed living in the brook shirs because i find it to be a very unique

close-kn pceitla to live. we have a very expensive vegetable garden. we've been getting beef and pork from a local farmer. and we get our own eggs from our chickens. so in eighth grade, i saw what the high school students were doing with the student initiative and i thought it was fantastic and i knew i wanted to be a part of it the second i got into high school. >> i first started working with the food project my junior year. my friend, sophie randolph, graduated last year. she started the food initiative with zoe borden. >> we both felt that an issue was school lunches. >> if i have to eat pizza, i will. but i don't know. it's never looked appealing to me. >> i'm a vegetarian and they

don't really offer vegetarian options in the cav feara. >> we represent the student body. they want better lunches. >> i eat almost every day in the cafeteria. >> we saw a lot of processed foods in our lunches. it doesn't have as many nutrients as fresh foods. we get served cut peaches in syrup but we have these amazing peaches that are growing out here. we have great apples that grow actually right next to us on a windy hill farm and we're getting served apples in plastic bags that are presliced. why not tap into our natural resources? that really started the discussion that if it was even fees tangible to the lunch area and everyone said yeah, we should do that. >> it's really hard for schools to change because there are all these rules like health code and in the school cafeteria.

people are really up against the wall. but these kids were able to figure out a way that they could basically provide a lunch for the students for almost the same price. >> we planned a local lunch pilot day. >> june has this phenomenal personality and we thought that instead of using canned vegetables, we should supply local vegetables are sauteed, squash, onions, garlic, cheese. >> yep. >> the lurch was fantastic. and -- lunch was fantastic and people really loved it. >> our cafeteria purchases through cisco, which in turn gets their food from other sources. who knows where? shipping this food all around this world to get into our

cafeteria creates a huge amount of c.o.2. a main contributor of global warming. for example, locally grown apple travels 61 miles whereas conventionally sourced apples travel 1,726 miles. so, you can see how much carbon that's really creating. it's a lot of carbon. we all really care about decreasing our carbon footprint which we live in it's such a beautiful someplace and we want to preserve that. project sprout was started five years ago by three student who is decided that they wanted more local and fresh vegetables from the cafeteria. here is our greenhouse and here we grow radishs and lettuce during the winter. other root vegetables that go up through the cafeteria. carrots, spinach, tomatoes. >> people come out on saturdays where there's kids from the

school or people around the community. we weed the garden, plant the garden, harvest. >> that food in turn, gets served in the cav feara. >> they bring in lunches from the local garden, like fresh veggies and food. so that's kind of nice. >> one of our main problems at project sprout is our main growing season is in the summer when school is not in session. so we've been working with the brookshire co-opt to -- co-oop to create a bartering system. >> they will sell that produce and in the summer, when they need it in return, we'll simply give them that product in exchange. >> once we had the pilot lunch under or belt, we were granted one day a month that we could totally take over the menu.

>> pressure food will have more nutrients and kids will have more energy during the day. >> kids can be engaged, they can do meaningful work in what is that other kids can't possibly. >> one of the main concerns at food -- that food services have was they didn't have enough staff. you have to prepare fresh foods. you can't just unfreeze it. you can't just take it out of a can. so it was more work and so that's where we step in and so i we will help with the extra work. we have students in the cafeteria mixing after codeos, teachers cutting vegetables. but they were concerned we weren't food safe certified so we said we will get food safe certified. charlie and i went to a nine-hour seminar. we went what temperatures foods need to be cooked at.

how to avoid contamination. we all passed with flying colors and received our credit accusation. -- certification. >> we planned a rotating schedule so each one of us can plan without a local chef each month. >> in october, i worked with brian to get the red line. i went to the red line inn and we worked out menu. >> the red line ordered a prize winning steer from the local fair. and brian said we want to use it for the local meatloaf. >> and he had all the local farms delivered to him and he got all of it and delivered to us and he cooked it with us and students also helped out and it was a good day. >> not only was our meatloaf grass-fed, it was a really great opportunity for us to show students where our food is coming from. we realize that local food day every month was a big process.

>> we want to move of it the student hands into the cafeteria hands because that would be a way tah make it long-lasting. >> so we're aiming toward to get a local few items in our lunches a few times a week. >> we purchased more from local farms and local grocery stores than obviously. that gives them some business and increase their local economy and i think that's a great goal to work towards. >> our generation, wear the ones that will going to have to be the problem solver for tomorrow. and why not start here and reduce our carbon footprint and buy creatively? >> and that was creatively. this is not in the movie because since after the movie was done, they started a store in their school. so they make food from all local ingredients and they -- it's part of the business course at the school. and they're providing fresh local organic -- a lot of vegetarian food for the students

all day. they to come by and have really good food. >> because the sea level change, miami, out of all the cities in the world will have the greatest economic loss. >> at a certain point, is there anything we can do? we have to start thinking that. >> we're the green team! >> melissa, maddie, melissa and nicole wanted to go beyond the classroom with what they had learned about energy and environmental science and make a difference in their school and community. >> we started by turning off computers. >> recycle. >> turn off lights. >> we weather stripped the doors and windows so the air can't escape so conserve air-conditioning. >> we turned off the about units

and opened the windows and doors. >> there are so many little things that you can do that will save energy and money. >> we have the green thermometer. we received energy that we were saving. >> it became a nonprofit school that reduce our carbon footprint. we saved ten's of thousands of dollars. >> we learned how our action affected the environment. >> we're able to vastly decrease the amount of energy our school used. >> going green is a win-win situation for everybody. my eighth grade year, we saved $39,000. and then the year after that, we saved another $14,000. >> we made a presentation for school board members about how the entire district could be more environmentally friendly. >> and they also saw the financial benefits of going green. >> the savings were astronomical. it was exciting to go to school board members. you could say look, you have no

idea how much money you could be saving. >> what's really interesting about this story, i think, is that it didn't just stop there. nicole's father owned buildings in miami. and at first, he was not supportive of what they were doing. then, when they saved $53,000, he went out and he exchanged the air-conditioning units in his buildings for energy store. and he saved a lot of money, thousands of dollars. and so, not only did those girls affect their school, they ended up helping their parents save money and their community save money and the businesses save money. so you can see how what kids can do can cascade down through a community and really, make a huge difference. >> small changes that add up to big savings. >> you can save millions of dollars and this is just one small county in florida. can you imagine if any other

county did this? can you imagine if every other state did this? >> it's right on every level. >> if you keep trying, you can't lose. you're saving money and more importantly, you're saving the planet. >> kids do have power. kids have a say in what happens. i felt like i could change things. i could strap on my capabilities. >> my name is felix. i'm 11 years old from germany. two years ago, after the warm weather, my teacher ask me to give a presentation about the climate crisis. >> felix came home and said hey, i have to make a power firm presentation next week. i said but you need to do that.

i have no idea how to do that. >> finally, he worked out by himself. he was researching on the internet and he learned about -- >> i found out that this man planted 30 million trees in africa in 30 years. so i thought if he can plant 30 million trees, we students in germany can also plant one million trees. this is the first tree we have planted. it's an apple tree. this tree was that size when we planted it two years ago. each tree that we plant takes up 10 kilos of co2 every year. and each tree is a symbol for climate justice. we've already done six plants at the academy. at the academy, there are scientists giving presentations, sometimes i'm giving

presentations. my presentation is about climate justice. client justice means that every person in the world is allowed to pollute the air with two tons of carbon. now as of today, in the u.s. america pollutes the air with 20 tons of carbon a year, an average german or european, 10 ons of carbon a year. and africa, a half a ton. today, i'm working together with thousands of other students in germany and many other countries to plant one million trees in each country. we're learning about different kinds of trees. >> we're here in the forest and we're planting some trees to help climate change. >> we have already planted 29

0,000 trees in germany. and 550,000 trees are already pledged. there are adults and politicians that changed how to talk and really understood what i talked about. >> he knows that children can do something. they can change a lot. and they can make a difference. [applause] >> if the adults don't do enough, we have to do it because we will live on earth for another 80 or 90 years. and our children will live even longer. >> felix really cares about future generations. and at the end of the movie, of all the movies, this is the one that where tears flow because it is -- when he sits there in the woods in this beautiful forest and he says that if the adults

aren't going to do something, then we have to do it. then it just hits you. it really gets to your heart. all the young people who i filmed possess a huge sense of compassion for the rest of the world and empathy. so, they have the ability to think beyond themselves and their own personal wants and needs and they have a sense of themselves in a continuum that it's not just we're here now, but there are generations to come. and so, each ending is very -- it's sort of turning it over to the audience and saying now, you can make a difference. yes, we made a difference, but you can make a difference. so, for instance, in olivia's oil spill, at the end, she says you don't have to do what i did, but whatever you do counts. and alex says kids have power. so at the end of each movie, that's the end of the message is that kids have power and kids can make a difference.

captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

09/11/23 09/11/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> there are still people buried in this house. they did not get the rescue they needed, so they died. i'm trying to get anything from the house. amy: the death toll from morocco has reached 2500 following the deadliest earth taken over six decades. rescue efforts have not even begun in some remote villages.