The Global W.E./Global Warming Express Returns to the NM Legislature for the 12th year!

Twelve years ago, 9 year old Marina Weber-Stevens dressed her teddy bear in one of the first Global Warming Express t-shirts and gave the first, one-minute GWE speech at a press conference in the Roundhouse. One would have thought it was Obama taking the podium, as the cameras flashed and applause echoed.

 

One year later, the Global W.E./GWE nonprofit was born, and, true to its name, the Global Warming Express took off, speeding its way to join forces with the RGSC, seven years later, to create a state-wide, in-school and after-school program in science, climate science, climate solutions, arts, advocacy and action.

 

On Environment Day, 2024, over 60 Global Warming Expressers from Las Vegas, NM, Raton, White Rock, Tijeres, Albuquerque and Santa Fe converged on the NM Legislature to, once again, give voice to their collective experience of gratitude for, connection to and protection of  all species. This year’s GWE program began integrating a new emphasis on inner and outer awareness- celebrated with our new, GWE t shirts with the words:

 

Kids’ Conscious Climate Curriculum on the front and Breathe! Learn. Dream. Do. Inspire. Kids Change Their Worlds on the back.

 

At the 2024 NM Legislature, the GWE students became a child-forest with giant puppets, they marched, GWEers Pearl, Elodie, Addy and Sophie gave their memorized, 1-minute speeches, they all attended a Mock Senate Committee session with Senator Liz Stefanik and Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and everyone drank in the thousands of sights and multitudes of sounds of their state’s Roundhouse in action. 

 

Shout outs and gratitude to the RGSC, CVNM (for transportation funding), Senators Stefanik and Sedillo-Lopez, GWE Artist-in-Residence Bobbe Besold, Drummer, Teacher and Drum maker, Eric Simpson, RGSC Photographer David McGahey, the admin staff of the Roundhouse and to the school administrators who worked with us, the teachers who took off a day to accompany the children on buses, and, of course, to our extraordinary GWE volunteer mentors who dedicate many hours of every week of the entire school year to bringing the GWE program to life!

 

Twelve years, one girl, one teddy bear, one t shirt and one speech-who ever would have guessed? Today’s GWE kids continue to directly impact their schools, their families, their communities and their state!

 

Breathe! Learn. Dream. Do. Inspire. Kids Change their Worlds.