Rainforest Action Network

www.ran.org

RYSE (Rainforest Action Network Youth Sustaining the Earth) is the new middle and high school branch of Rainforest Action Network.The RYSE network consists of youth working to create climate-neutral campuses, protect endangered forests and support the clean energy revolution by breaking our addiction to oil and coal.

My little boy loved the idea of helping out by "buying a tree".It made him feel like he was a part of the solution.Ranked as one "lean green fighting machine" by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Rainforest Action Network has grown from a concerned group monitoring the Brazilian Rainforests to a powerful group that traverses the world to bring attention to violations of eco-destruction by individual governments, truly remarkable.

Companies like logging giant paper manufacturer Weyerhaeuser have backed down on growth proposals because RAN watches them like a hawk, or more apt, like a vulnerable tree with a voice. They go after the big Wall Street players like Merrill Lynch's CEO Stanley O'Neal to stop help financing dirty coal plants and instead adopt climate friendly environmental and social policies.

They protest the World Bank and G8 nations and pressure them to end oil aid (end subsidies for the international oil industry that come at the expense of the environment and impoverished countries.)They also call on policymakers to help fight global poverty by supporting broader debt cancellation.

For more information for you or your children, look up www.RYSEup.org.It provides young activists with tools, resources and a way to connect with other concerned kids around the world.