Liliana Karesh

00:00
Hello everyone, my name is Liliana Karesh. I am currently a junior at Napa High School. Growing up, my relationship with the environment, I was always aware that climate change was occurring, but it really was made evident to me when my community experienced a lot of extreme wildfires. So in Napa County, we've had a lot, a lot, a lot of wildfires in the past, especially during like 2020 and 2017.

00:38
I saw how my community was devastated by these wildfires, and I knew that it was happening due to global warming, and these natural disasters were definitely expanding due global warming and I really wanted to take part in helping stop the climate crisis. Personally for me, I really enjoyed the CYCP program. I thought it was really incredible to meet students all over California and you know collaborate with them, get ideas from them on how they're conducting their campaigns and I also thought it was really incredible to learn all of the information about environmental policy and the different types of policy that we can design such as like board policies or resolutions.

01:25
Personally for me, I really utilized my team in Napa Schools for Climate Action to build my coalition because I was able to find seven other members that you know were also really passionate about this issue and I was able to really kind of conduct a variety of workshops, meetings, and other events where we kind of came together and crafted the resolution itself.

01:52
We focused on the concept of climate restoration, which focuses on shifting global thinking to have a goal of restoring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to a safe level below 300 parts per million, because my youth group really recognizes that we must go that step further from just cutting down our emissions to now also implementing restorative methods simultaneously in order to effectively battle the climate crisis as it's already almost 2025 and we're nearing closer to the year that can bring a variety of tipping points of environmental tipping points which is 2030.

02:31
We also implemented elements of climate literacy into the resolution as well. We based it off of the California Senate Resolution 34, which has a lot of climate restoration elements. And then we use some of the clauses that CYCP provided as well that were more focused towards climate literacy. My entirety of junior year, I worked on sending out. First, I sent out a survey to the student body, you know, to kind of see what the student body's opinion was on implementing such a resolution.

03:04
Then through our workshops, we were able to invite scientists such as Professor Phoebe Bernard and we also worked with a few local environmental leaders from a variety of organizations like Napa Climate Now, for example. And after our workshops, we contacted our superintendent and we were able to get our piece of policy passed by the policy committee of the Napa Valley Unified School District.

03:32
And then we presented on April 25th of this past, I mean this year, and we were able to get it adopted, which is really, really exciting. Moving forward, our team is of course just going to try and expand this climate restoration resolution and we've also been in contact with our congressman because we've actually been kind of working sort of, I wouldn't say closely with him, but he is aware of our efforts as Napa Schools for Climate Action, and he actually named us the Napa County Climate Crisis Champions for 2024, which is super awesome, and we're really thankful, but he's great, and he really recognizes the climate catastrophe as an urgent issue, so we've actually met with his legislative fellow in Washington, D.C.

04:23
yesterday, and we brought our climate restoration resolution to his legislative fellow, and, you know, he's going to try and see if Congressman Mike Thompson is interested in introducing climate restoration legislation, which is super exciting for us and for this whole initiative. So that's what the future is kind of looking like, just basically expanding our initiative and getting in touch with students all across California.

04:48
And, of course, I'll be using all the tools that CYCP provided me with throughout the program in order to create that toolkit for other students to use. I think I will most definitely be pursuing a career in sustainability and I'm definitely going to think about going into more of the political route instead of the scientific route because throughout my high school career I've just been so involved in the political side of climate advocacy and especially with the climate restoration resolution that just kind of fueled me even more to go into the political route so you know I'm super excited to start applying to colleges and share my story.

05:31
The main thing I really want is for students to just realize that this is possible. It is possible to you know create your own piece of policy. It's possible to start your own coalition and i just hope that you know my story just really inspires other students to become either involved in climate advocacy or just realize that they can do a project such as this and that you know there's opportunities available and i hope that they also can possibly you know contact me if they're interested in climate restoration or our initiative as we are trying to you know expand to other high schools um but yeah i think that's pretty much it