Adirondacks inspiration: Wild Center’s Hannah Barg’s role in international climate education
By Chloe Bennett
Last year, a collection of environmental educators from around the world gathered to begin climate and environment projects focused on their communities. Among them was Hannah Barg, who works as the youth climate program manager for the Wild Center in Tupper Lake.
Living in Lake Placid since 2022, Barg has led several climate and education events around the Adirondack Park. The next step: bringing the Adirondacks to the global stage.
The CEE-Change Fellowship, developed by the North American Environmental Education Association (NAAEE), selects a small cohort of people leading climate work across multiple countries. Barg was accepted into the group last year and began the work last summer.
This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
What made you want to be part of this fellowship?
What struck me about this fellowship was that it’s focused on youth climate education and civic engagement. I liked that it was braiding together these two themes that I already had been thinking about and working on with the Climate Smart Communities project.
I will be extending it through December 2024 so that I can attend the NAAEE conference in Pittsburgh in November. I get to see everybody in person again, because it’s people from nine different countries.
What Adirondack-specific project are you working on?
My project is related to the Climate Smart Communities program; publishing the first guide and then the second guide, which is more about youth and local governments taking climate action in general.
Basically my predecessor (at the Wild Center) Erin Griffin, and a bunch of young people who had been involved in the Climate Smart Communities Program in their local governments all came together and we’re like: ‘Hey, we should write a guide to help other young people be able to replicate what we did in our local government and their local government.’
What have you learned from your peers that you plan to bring back to the Adirondacks?
With the fellowship being focused on civic engagement, the political context and what civic engagement means in those different countries looks really different. Also, just the policy climate and the funding for environmental education looks really different in those communities as well.
I learned a lot about the global context of civic engagement and also the global context for environmental education and what that looks like in other countries.
Ritchie Tusabe, a fellow from Uganda, is running one of the major environmental education programs in his country. I’ve been so inspired by the international fellows who are leading the way for their country and creating what will become the environmental education curriculum in their country.
I feel like it’s helped me understand the importance of having a global perspective about climate change, but also how important it is to think locally about climate issues because all of us in our communities have really different climate hazards and impacts that we’re dealing with.
Have you found similarities between the climate work you do in the park and what others are doing in their countries?
Definitely. There are other fellows in the program who help run the Wild Center’s Youth Climate Summits at their organizations and it’s been really cool for me to learn from the expertise of the other summit sites.
Fellow Catherine Price, who runs the Nashville Youth Climate Summit, is definitely one of my mentors now because of this fellowship and the opportunity to get to know her better. I like hearing about how amazing her summit is and how much it’s grown. She’s been doing it for five years and to see where it’s been from like their first year to now, it’s so incredible.
You’re tasked with developing a Community Action Project that focuses on equity. How do you plan to do that here in the Adirondacks?
I think part of the interesting thing about Climates Smart Communities is it doesn’t apply to New York City. So, a lot of the young people who have worked on this project are from rural communities. In terms of equity, that’s how I’m thinking about it.
This project is working with rural youth, but my goal is to expand beyond that and have young people who have been involved with planning (climate) summits in other cities or states contribute to the guide. I’m hoping that the cohort of people who will help develop the workshop module for that guide will be more racially and gender-diverse.
Photo at top: Hannah Barg and other fellows pose for a photo by the Potomac River in August. Photo provided by Barg
Hannah Barg says; “I feel like it’s helped me understand the importance of having a global perspective about climate change, but also how important it is to think locally about climate issues…” I would offer Ms. Barg the following comment from my own experience:
The first Earth Day in 1970 was overwhelmingly successful because it came from local people all over America who came together in their own communities. It was a clear show of support, and it was a “wake-up call” to the political elites of that era. The voters were sending a message that both Republicans and Democrats realized that they’d better pay attention to: Stop the industrial pollution of our environment; clean up America’s air, land, and waters; enact meaningful laws which will protect our natural environment for future generations.
Here in the Adirondacks, a handful of local people in the Town of Johnsburg celebrated that first Earth Day in 1970, with a clean-up of ugly roadside litter (much of it plastic throw away containers). The overwhelming success of that first Earth Day event led the organizers, to form the Upper Hudson Environmental Action Committee (UHEAC). Over the next quarter century, this local citizens group brought together people of all ages from every social background, in support of annual town cleanups and many other environmental activities. They were guided by the following quotation, which became their call-to-action back then, and is just as true today – perhaps even more so….
“If you cannot do something about that stream or those lovely marshlands in your town, then how do you think you are going to save the globe?” Rene’ Dubos