Climate Change & Green Initiatives at DHS

Human Rights Club promotes awareness and activism on climate change at DHS

• We work in cooperation with Earthworks on a variety of initiatives within DHS and District 113 as a whole.  Consult our Agenda for details.  We will update this website periodically with information about those initiatives.
  • In past years, we have hosted film screenings and talks with the producer of An Inconvenient Sequel, screened a documentary by local climate activists, and hosted members of the Climate Reality Leaders at a meeting, where they inspired and taught us how to organize for action.
• We try to practice and model being good stewards of the earth by
  • sourcing fair trade chocolates whenever we do a sale - please see our Fair Trade page to find out how that relates to the environment
  • choosing fabrics for our t-shirts that are better for the earth
  • refusing plastic and buying compostable goods instead whenever we order items to sell. For example,
    • at the Jam for Justice, we use compostable plates, we replace compostable spoons for the red plastic Dairy Queen spoons for the blizzards, use paper bags for the popcorn, compostable cups and refilling incentives for our lemonade sales, etc.
    • when we order pizza for a sale, we request that they do not include plastic serving pieces or plates; instead, we provide compostable plates
  • contracting with a compost service for our refuse at the Jam for Justice, trying to make it as close to a Zero Waste event as possible

• Climate Reality Leaders visited us on February 25, 2019.  Here are some notes on ideas they shared.

Learn more about the global movement to combat climate change and how you can participate below, and consider coming to our meetings and events.

• Change your search engine to Ecosia by going to https://www.ecosia.org/.  Each search plants trees.
• Calculate your carbon footprint and learn how you can reduce it at the Nature Conservancy website https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/ and at this New York Times interactive article "How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint."
• The global student movement to go on strike against climate change began with Greta Thunberg.  Watch her 3 min speech before the United Nations from December 2018 or her 11 minute TED talk.
• Follow the legal challenge mounted by a set of youth plaintiffs suing the U.S. government in the case known as Juliana v. the United States, by visiting the website of the legal team, https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/. 
• Learn about the Sunrise Movement by watching the YouTube clip below.