Jeremy Jones & Nick Visconti Speak About Climate Change
Protect Our Winter’s Hot Planet/Cool Athletes
Between their two assemblies, 500 students at Truckee, CA High School got schooled on climate change. Jeremy’s presentation prompted the school’s band teacher, aptly named Mr. Green, to come up with a collective DoOneThing [to fight climate change] for his students. By the end of Visconti’s presentation, Mr. Green had gotten the go-ahead from the forest service for his students to plant a grove of trees on a ridgeline outside of town where all forestation had been wiped out by a massive fire years back. By all accounts, teachers at Truckee High said that the students were talking about the assemblies for the rest of the day and many seemed to have caught a bug for environmentalism.
Photos courtesy of Kealan Shilling
Hot Planet/Cool Athletes, the acclaimed climate assembly hosted by pro snow sports athletes, visited Truckee High school yesterday with Jeremy Jones and Nick Visconti. An educator with Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) gave students a clear overview of the current climate crisis, colored by Jeremy and Nick’s perspectives that uniquely conveyed the impact of climate change along and what’s ahead if we don’t take action to reduce carbon emissions.
Recently home from a trip to the Arctic, POW Founder Jeremy Jones was welcomed by an enthusiastic and packed Truckee High School auditorium for his presentation of Hot Planet/Cool Athletes. Jeremy shared with the students his own experiences that inspired him to get involved with fighting climate change along with insight as to the power they (youth) have to make a difference. “I spend a lot of time with marketing people at these companies and what they are all trying crack is what you – the youth demographic – want. As purchasers and tomorrow’s leaders you have a lot of power to influence corporations to make responsible decisions,” he said.
The energy and enthusiasm from Jeremy’s presentation carried over to the 11:35 presentation when Nick Visconti, hosted a second presentation of Hot Planet/Cool Athletes. Captivating the audience with his snowboard trickery (footage) and age-appropriate jokes, Nick was able to convey his wealth of climate knowledge and relationship with the mountain to enthused and open ears. “Talking at [Hot Planet/Cool Athletes] assemblies has been a beautiful experience because it allows for direct face-to-face communication with youth,” said Visconti.
The Hot Planet/Cool Athletes program is a collaboration between snow sports nonprofit Protect Our Winters (POW) and ACE which blends ACE’s acclaimed multimedia presentation on climate science and solutions with personal stories from pro snow sport athletes about climate change and its effects on our mountains. Since its launch in January 2011, Hot Planet/Cool Athletes has reached thousands of high school students in Colorado, Utah, California and Nevada.
