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Generation Hot Mark Hertsgaard, Author, Generation Hot Scott Harmon, Sustainability Advisor to Boy Scouts of America Alec Loorz, Founder, Kids-vs-Global-Warming.com Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, moderator The climate change debate in America appears hopelessly stuck. If the US is to have any chance to break the stalemate, young people must get involved and force their voice to be heard, says this panel of activists convened by Climate One. For Alec Loorz, the 16-year-old founder of www.Kids-vs-Global-Warming.com, change will come because his generation and those that follow demand it. What\u2019s needed, he says, is \u201crevolution\u201d one that \u201cignites the compassion in people\u2019s hearts so that they realize that the way we are doing things now is not right and it doesn\u2019t live with the survival of my generation and future generations in mind.\u201d Loorz is organizing the iMatter march, planned for this spring, which aims to mobilize 1 million young people in all 50 states on the same day. \u201cYouth have the moral authority to say to our parents, our leaders, and our teachers, \u2018Do I matter to you? Does my future mater to you?\u201d he says. Mark Hertsgaard, author, Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, welcomes the activism of youth because the forces arrayed against them are so powerful. Oil companies \u201care the richest business enterprise in the history of humanity. It is not surprising that they have enormous political power,\u201d but, he says, \u201cthe only way that you overcome that kind of entrenched money power is through sustained and very determined people power.\u201d Scott Harmon, sustainability advisor to Boy Scouts of America, is mobilizing youth by harnessing the power and reach of the world\u2019s largest youth organization: scouting. Scouts may march, Harmon said, but even more important is \u201cto get them educated. I want to get their hands dirty doing projects that teach them about the solution.\u201d He wants youth to do two things: wake up the parents and, when they enter the workforce in five or ten years, force their companies to become more sustainable. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to get it done in our generations, even your generation probably [to Alec Loorz], so we better get the next generation, and the one behind that ready, otherwise we\u2019re really toast,\u201d he says. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club on March 9, 2011\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices