Hello. My name is Alexander Heller and I am interning with The Climate Group this summer. More specifically I am working on the Together Campaign. The reason the together campaign is so important and can truthfully make a difference is because they are providing simple and easy ways for every American to change the path our environment is heading down and turning America into a low carbon economy. Changing a light bulb is as easy as it gets, yet it can make such a large difference if every American decided to use energy efficient light bulbs. Taking it a bit of a step further, changing your thermostat to one that is programmable and adapts to the temperature automatically can help you avoid wasting energy as well. Taking a shower in five minutes instead of ten even makes a difference.

Now to draw from my own personal experience. At Deerfield Academy, where I go to boarding school in Massachusetts we participate in a competition called the Green Cup in which about twenty boarding schools in New England compete against each other to see who can lower their energy use by the largest percent. For that one month where all six hundred students are being watched, they turn off every light and only use one glass in the dining hall, getting up to get more water instead of taking two glass, meaning that two glasses must be washed. Even the temperature in the dorms is about six or seven degrees lower. Everyone wants to use as little energy as possible.

Students get really excited about it as well. Videos are made encouraging students to use less energy and showing them ways to achieve this, and students roam the halls during free periods making sure that every light is off. It’s an understatement to say that Deerfield students are a little competitive. Students who leave their lights on numerous times might be forced to check into their dorms half an hour earlier than usual or might have to do pushups, depending on the corridor.

Every week during the Green Cup the student body received announcements about the amount of energy we were using, what we could further do to cut down our usage, and would be told what dorms had decreased their usage by the most and least amounts. We would also learn of situations happening around the world that were pertinent to the environment.

Are you ready to be shocked? We came in second to last place. I trust the generations of the future to be cautious about energy use, and I hope that our current generation will not leave us without hope.