By Jill Wirt, student at Rocklin High School

The Greenwise Youth Summit was organized by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson as part of his Greenwise Initiative to make the Sacramento area the Emerald Valley – the greenest region in the country.

Before the Youth Summit and a recent ACE presentation, I wasn’t really sure of what I wanted to major in, or what I wanted to do for my career. After hearing the ACE presentation at school, I realized that climate change and solutions are issues I could be passionate about. And the Youth Summit really inspired me to get more involved.

Focusing on using reliable energy resources while still able to protect the environment is a big issue. I was thoroughly impressed with the Mayor’s goals and aspirations to make Sacramento the greenest place in the nation, and how he knew that kids like us could make the difference.

Having a leader in our community who is concerned about making the valley “green” and not just worried about politics is inspiring to see.  He was not the only inspiring figure at the summit; other students were too.

Talking to other students and hearing their ideas made me feel like we could take on the world! Some of our ideas were so simple, some were complex, but that is how everything starts: imagination and ideas.

With imagination, anything is possible, as shown by the Hip-Hop Congress from Auburn. Their performances throughout the day were so impressive and self expressive. They presented problems about the world within their music, poems, and raps, which made it easy to relate to. Most people would say that this was a waste of a Saturday afternoon, but I thought it was valuable.

Everything I learned makes me want to do something big, be a part of a big movement to fight the cause of climate change and change the world.

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The goal of the Youth Summit was to allow young people to share their ideas for how they could contribute to this vision. ACE Educators Matt Lappe and Rebecca Anderson co-hosted the summit, giving the ACE presentation and facilitating the student brainstorming session.