Meet a few Mainers who have signed up for the Maine Global Warming Challenge.
Join our community today by signing up for the Challenge. Send us a little about yourself for our website, including actions you’ve pledged to take. We’d love to include your photo, as well. Please send to beth@nrcm.org.
 As a teacher, Iver Lofving knows that education is key to affecting change. Iver became very concerned about peak oil when one of his students in Skowhegan showed him the website depicting the "die-off." Iver and his wife, Maili Bailey, began to make changes to their lifestyle. They started driving fuel-efficient cars, added a solar hot water heater, and made other changes that resulted in their using half the fossil fuel and cutting their carbon emissions in half. They enjoy their life a lot more now and save money while they help save the planet. In addition to the changes in his own life, Iver formed a peak oil group, helped build a solar car, and with his study hall students formed the Sustainable Future, which does recycling every week at Skowhegan Area High School. With his friend Nelson Cole, Iver produces a television show entitled "Sugarhouse Journal," which deals with sustainable community. It shows on many community access channels in Maine and New Hampshire. To raise awareness about the issue of global warming, Iver's students began making t-shirts, and one of them suggested inviting NRCM staff to come talk about "An Inconvienient Truth. " At the students' urging, Iver contacted Sara Lovitz who came and gave a talk that focused on Maine. He was expecting 50 students and ended up with over 150! Now the kids are biking to school and making more t-shirts. Iver invites you to visit his school's Web album. Thanks, Sara, and thanks NRCM! |
Musician and educator Matt Loosigian’s business, EarthJams, has been looking for something like the Maine Global Warming Challenge to explain the issue of global warming to children. Matt says the Challenge can be used in the classroom as a supplemental lesson to his music about the environment. The subject matter in his programs is, "Show kids what they can do to improve the world around them." Matt believes the Challenge can easily be adapted for children of different ages, and that through simple things like changing the light bulbs they use at home, kids can have a positive impact on reducing global warming. In fact, through EarthJams, Matt is working to bring a free CFL to all 210,000 Maine students. This simple act would stop 126 million pounds of CO2 from warming the atmosphere and save Maine families at least $10.5 million. Tune in to WCLZ 98.9 FM to hear Matt’s public service announcements for the Maine Global Warming Challenge! |
 Soon after Sue Edwards came to NRCM’s member event with renowned author Bill McKibben, she signed up for our Maine Global Warming Challenge. Already active in Brunswick’s recycling committee, Sue understands from growing up in the Depression that we should "eat it up, wear it out, make it do, do without." This ethic, which inspires her work on recycling issues, extends naturally to the problem of global warming. She and her husband Bud decided to trade in their cars for a fuel-efficient hybrid Prius to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. They also have pledged to wash their clothes in cold water and use a collapsible wooden clothes dryer instead of the electric model. Sue acknowledges, "Not everybody can afford a Prius, but everyone can take some of these simple steps to reduce their impact." |
Blog for the Challenge! |
 Rebecca Rockefeller is on a zero-carbon diet. Rebecca has always had a concern for the environment and first studied the problem of global warming in-depth during her college years. Ever since then, she has been working hard to change the politics and policy around the global warming issue and at encouraging individual actions to
reduce pollution that make a big difference. While she says there is no panacea to breaking our fossil fuel dependence, Rebecca certainly leads by example. |
