Clean Up the Environment: A Tree A Day

"Every generation has its own worries - the things that really get us." -- Emma Thompson, award-winning actress and campaigner against human trafficking. Click here to read Thompson's post.

They say spring is the season when hope and life blossoms, but for me as a child, it was the coughing, sneezing and wheezing season, a veritable hell on earth. Growing up in Beijing with a sensitive respiratory system, I had no trouble realizing the importance of our environment. Every spring beginning about ten years ago, when I was seven-years old, sandstorms would blanket the city, leaving behind a thick layer of sand that covered everything. Anybody who dared to walk outside would end up looking like a mummy who took a few tumbles on a sand dune.

At first, I thought I was the innocent victim of other people's wrongdoing. However, as I got older, I realized the truth. My family had contributed; even I had contributed, to environmental problems. We are all to blame and we are all victims. That's how I got involved in environmental activities. I believe that changes start from within, and that's what I wanted people to understand. I believe everybody needs to act, and needs to act now to clean up our environment.

With that in mind, I longed for a chance to take a stand. And that's what I did at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting with the Davos 6: Whitney, Juan, Gillion, Nick and Rhadeena. We brought our spectrum of concerns to the World Economic Forum table. We talked about education, poverty, identity, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) social movements, and our environment; we shared ideas on a "World Youth Forum"; we challenged world leaders to take a moment and listen to what the people have to say.
One thing that I'm especially proud of is that the six of us remained true to who we are. By that, I mean the scene didn't intimidate us. We made our voices heard, greeted everyone we met with our enthusiasm, and most importantly, had a lot of fun in the process.

My Davos Experience

I bet Bono doesn't get up this early for his band practices, so I wondered why he teamed up with Al Gore at 7:45a.m on that cold day last month for their World Economic Forum Annual Meeting session, "A Unified Earth Theory: Combining Solutions to Extreme Poverty and the Climate Crisis?" My alarm clock woke me up at 6:00am when I was still an apathetic block of lethargy in my comfy bed. On a day back home, I'd get rid of the annoying sound for five more minutes of rest, but not today, I had meeting my heroes in mind to motivate myself.

After a long bus ride, two nosedives into snowdrifts thanks to my slip-ons that tend to glide on ice, and the tightest security check I've ever been through, I found myself in the Davos Congress Hall sipping tea with honey and waiting for my idols to take the stage. This better be good, I thought, or else I'll never buy another U2 CD, and Al Gore can forget about me watching An Inconvenient Truth 2, if it ever comes out.

With jokes, facts and a whole new perspective on a "unified earth theory," what I learned in the session went far beyond my expectations. Al Gore and Bono taught me how closely extreme poverty and the climate crisis are interlinked and how to tackle them simultaneously. The Congress Hall was like a classroom; I was the pupil looking up to my teachers and hanging tight to every word they said. It didn't take me long to realize that this great lesson was only the beginning of an unbelievable experience.

I ran into former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in the bathroom, rubbed shoulders with Pakistan's President Musharraf, Afghanistan's President Karzai, U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and did an interview with CNN. In addition, I had a great time in our own session, Future Shifts: The Voice of the Next Generation.

Now, the Davos 6 are all back in our own communities and continuing our work with new skills and friendships. But our passion for what we do, something we gained well before we went to the World Economic Forum, hasn't changed. We're on the ground and slowly, but surely, making the changes we want to see.

See more on www.roadtodavos.net.

To see the entire "Road to Davos" series, click here.