Hello, to students at Sokoine University of Agriculture -- our new friends. Thank you so much for connecting with us. Thanks very much as well to the team at MyClimate (Hot Stuff Chill Out) for for bringing us together.

As an introductory note: I will be writing initially on behalf of myself and my team at ClimateChangeEducation.Org and GlobalWarmingKids.net. In time, I'll bring in fellow students at the University of California -- on the Berkeley and Davis campuses; but at the moment, I'm not drawing in larger classes. The ClimateChangeEducation.org team includes several of my colleagues at UC -- scientists, students, faculty and staff.

ClimateChangeEducation.org is honored to work with MyClimate and Hot Stuff Chill Out. We look forward to sharing our resources and networks with MyClimate. If you are happy with the idea, we very much want to be supportive of your work in Tanzania, by sharing our resources with you.

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A great pleasure for me is finding MANY climate heroes worldwide. Role models, inspirational people on every continent, young and old -- who have made contributions in any of a wide variety of ways.

Our portal websites -- especially GlobalWarmingKids.Net are designed to highlight international leaders; particularly younger heros (kids, students, teenagers, and young adults.)

For the ClimateChangeEducation.org team, it is very important for us to recognize the work of others. We encourage different programs and efforts to work together, help one another. One way this happens is how we recognize leaders /heroes. Most often, we don't just find and call attention to an individual hero. We connect with programs that are already identifying and promoting the work of many leaders. Our web portals further promote what these programs are already doing. Since our web portals are VERY popular and very well respected, we lend our power to these programs. We are visited by millions all over the world.

One such program we work with is Action for Nature. This marvelous program has recognized young eco heroes around the world for many years. They have a very well developed application, interview, awards program.

You'll see Action for Nature prominently on our GlobalWarmingKids. Net website. Each year, they present awards to around 10 young activist leaders. We, in turn, promote these leaders as well -- while recognizing the Action for Nature program as a whole.

With that in mind, you'll see that I can think of hundreds of climate heroes. I wouldn't want to try to select just one. There are so many doing great work -- I want to recognize them all. In fact, I want to see that number grow. Thousands and millions of heroes.

We love to see different programs working well together. If MyClimate, Action for Nature and your programs work together, we are quite happy about that. We're glad to make introductions where that helps

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In responding to the questions you have posed below, I'll share more of my thoughts on "heros" -- how I like to use that term; and other words I tend to use.

Most importantly, to inspire others to be involved, active, to work in a positive direction -- to make a difference.

I am Ok with Magic Johnson’s definition of “hero”. I also like the comment made by one of the classes in Tanzania about an alternate word – “saint.”

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I understand and appreciate that the Hot Stuff Chill Out website is in English. No problem. Please know though that I am very interested in the words people use in other languages. Sometimes there is a word that is better at describing an idea than one that directly translates into just one word in English. I am sure that is true with the first languages of Tanzania. If there are such words that convey ideas very beautifully, but require a few sentences to describe their meaning in English, please know that I am still interested. I have much to learn from you all.

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I probably use too many words when I write and speak, but I will share with you that “hero” is just one word I use – and only sometimes. Here is an idea of the kinds of words our team at ClimateChangeEducation.org uses: Climate change science and solutions are big subjects, in many ways they are complex topics. But that doesn’t mean that they are too hard to understand. Not at all. Our experience in teaching climate change science to hundreds of thousands of people over the last ten years proves this. People can very well understand the basics, the most important things, even if they are six years old or 106 years old. If they have had lots of school or very little school. Education on climate change can and should be engaging, involving, lively. It can make people passionate to act. It can help them to understand the hundreds of things any person can do. Yes, climate change is serious. When you learn about it, it is appropriate that you get angry, sad, even scared – for a little bit. But you should know there is much we can and should do – each of us, and together. Most of all, learning about climate change can and should be FUN!! That’s how it is when we teach it – very fun. Yet we don't hide how serious it is too.

We don’t just teach about the science and solutions. We also locate and promote lots of great examples of what people are doing – kids, students and older people. Individuals, groups, classes. We look forward to doing this more, together with Hot Stuff Chill Out.

People all over the world can learn from each other. Inspire each other, get ideas from one another.

We are encouraging kids, people to be active, to be involved. We want to help them be able to make a big difference, to see that there are hundreds of ways they can do that.

That’s the longer description. I’m OK if people shorten that to: we are working to help people be climate heros.

Responding to Part “b” first: I’m somewhat commenting on this in question #2. I don’t mind the term “hero” the way many people use it. I use it sometimes. I wouldn’t be happy to see it used alone or too much. In question #2, you’ll see the kind of terms, the kind of words I tend to use. ++++++++++++++++++

I find Severn's speech and work very inspiring. We've run the video of her speech on GlobalWarmingKids.net for many years. As Associate Editor of that website, my choices have a lot to do with what happens on the web portal. I run Severn's speech on the front page frequently. That reaches millions of kids every year.

Much of what I do is work on the websites and communicate with people all over the world. Kids, students, groups. I also explore what others are doing -- I spend a lot of time studying and learning from the work of others. I answer lots of emails we get from across the planet.

A big reason we created these websites was to help classes like yours make a big a difference as you want to. To be able to act now. Also to be effective in your future. As active citizens and what you do professionally -- whether you become a professional scientist, a teacher, or pursue other essential work. We hope to be of help to the work of Hot Stuff Chill Out too, and MyClimate. We are getting to know them better. We are optimistic that they are good at working together with other organizations. Many groups are only good at working alone. We will only get so far solving the problems of climate change if we each try to do things only among or for ourselves. -- or our individual group.

In fact I would say if we do not learn well how to work with others we will NEVER solve the climate change problem. Sometimes I think that the essential problem comes down to one word: selfishness.

I look forward to hearing from you more about your plans, but also a little about what you think of what I do. Including your recommendations about how I can do a better job. I am always looking for ways to be more effective.

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