Kaganga John at the People's Summit that is affiliated with the UN Conference, Rio+20

Kaganga John, 56-year-old farmer, community leader and environmentalist, is in Rio de Janiero this week to participate in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. He is...

Ephrem Bwishe has always had a special connection to trees. Since he was a child he has felt that trees were there to protect him.

He grew up on Idjwi Island, the largest island on Lake Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)....

When he walked into 1,000 Cups Coffee House in Kampala, Uganda, he was wearing a canvas hat with the bill folded up in the front. It was a hot day and we were going to be out in the sun. We greeted each other. I introduced him to my friend...

Last month when artist and web designer Theresa Wear arrived at her office, morning coffee in hand, it was clear that it was going to be a very different day at San Diego based web design and marketing firm, iMatrix. Wear and her colleagues were dressed in scrubs ready to...

I was on the edge of my seat hanging onto his every word. Landry Ninteretse, a climate activist from Burundi, was speaking in front of hundreds at the United Nations Climate Negotiations in Durban, South Africa at 350.org's African Youth Voices event last month. I closed my eyes, trying to...

As the United Nations Climate Negotiations droned on last Friday night, a very different gathering was happening 100 meters from the conference center. At the "Speakers Corner," which was the center of the Occupy COP17 activities, 10 boys from a local township put on a play as 50 audience members...

When she stepped off the vessel, her legs were shaky, her heart was pounding and she was filled with an overwhelming sense of responsibility. She didn't know anything about the environment or climate change but at age 24 she had been chosen to be the first Vietnamese person to set...

Kyle Thiermann, a 20-year-old professional surfer from Santa Cruz California, stood in a clothing factory in Sri Lanka amongst the commotion of the sewing machines, fabric cutters and conveyor belts as workers bustled to make sporting wear that would be distributed in the United States and Europe. A large orange...

Vositha Wijenayake rushed through the crowds and across the platform to make the 10:30am Saturday train to Galle, Sri Lanka. She was headed south from Colombo to meet with a group of young men who run a tree planting and climate change education program in the high schools of the...

Jayme Montgomery-Baker is the Wisconsin State Director for the League of Young Voters Education Fund. She organizes young voters from the inner city to take part in the civic process. During elections, she runs voter registration, education, and turn out campaigns. The rest of the year she organizes young people...

When Kim Nguyen, 28-year-old social worker, left his homeland of Australia in August of 2008, he thought of climate change as an abstract subject that was occasionally discussed on the evening news and something that politicians argued about. But Nguyen always sensed there was a bigger story out there.

When Matt Singer was 19 years old he decided he needed a break from college. He left Whitman College and moved home to Montana, working part time to support himself. He was doing fine until one day when he woke up with intense stomach pain and had to drive himself...

It was a warm spring evening on Milwaukee's north side and four-year-old Jasmine Owens was playing double dutch outside her family's home. As she enjoyed the simple pleasures of childhood, a stray bullet struck her in the head. She died on the scene. Days later, Carey Jenkins would stand over...