Carleen Cullen wants you to know that when she gets an idea, the proverbial light bulb that pops on over her head is not a regular one, but “a compact fluorescent light bulb.” The Marin County mother says she can’t afford to think any other way, given the issues such as carbon emissions and global warming harming the environment.
In that regard, one of her biggest ideas came to her three years ago. It was date night for her and her husband, Jeff, and they went to see Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” At that point, she realized that something needed to be done about the environmental crisis. Soon after, she launched Cool the Earth, a nonprofit program created to build green awareness and inspire communities to convert talk into action.
“People tend to be fairly environmentally aware, but no one was really doing anything,” Cullen says of her neighborhood. “That was really the primary thing: trying to give people the tools to take that interest and concern and turn it into action. Once people start changing the light bulbs, then this climate change issue becomes more of a priority.”
After launching in 2007, the Cullen family worked with parents and local leaders to expand the program to 25 Bay Area schools in six months. Now the program reaches more than 100 schools and youth groups in the region, and more than a dozen nationwide. The program has gotten more than 30,000 kids and their families to take more than 65,000 energy-saving actions to reduce their carbon emissions. These families have eliminated about 50 million pounds of carbon from the atmosphere.
You might attribute much of the success to Cullen’s unique approach. Rather than burden busy teachers with an additional green curriculum, Cullen decided to focus on families and volunteers. She felt that parent groups would be willing and able to employ green strategies, especially if given a roadmap. But the target group, she said, has been the kids, who have a natural passion for causes and they would be able to push for change in their homes.
“You really need something to motivate parents and adults to change,” she said, “whether it’s financial incentive, peer pressure or their kids. It became apparent that working with the kids was the way to go.”
Specifically, the program focuses on children in grades K-8. It begins with a live performance, where school teachers play roles such as “Mr. Carbon” and “Planet Earth.” The kids then receive action coupon books that outline 20 ways their family can reduce their carbon emissions for free or at a low cost. A school banner will display each family’s total number of actions, providing results to inspire and excite the kids even more.
“Parents feel overwhelmed,” said Emily Fagans, Cool the Earth coordinator for Orion Elementary School in Redwood City, Calif. “They're too aware of the big picture and sometimes I think they feel they can't really make a difference. But kids have such a natural enthusiasm and I think that optimism spreads to the parents.”
The grassroots program has formed partnerships with various environment and energy companies, and it has won numerous awards -- such as a “Clean Air” Award from Breathe California -- for promoting change. In her own home, Cullen has seen changes as well. Nowadays, dinner discussions revolve around energy-saving tips. And during a grocery trip, her young daughter kept bugging her at the checkout stand.
“I thought she was pointing to candy,” Cullen recalled. “But when I looked, I saw she wanted to get reusable bags.”
For more information, visit CooltheEarth.org.
