Students Help Cool Global Warming Area Pair Attend Conference On Cutting Greenhouse Gases

As the world convenes this month in an attempt to alleviate global warming, two Inland Northwest students will be right there at the negotiating table - working with officials, airing their views and voicing the opinions of young people in the United States.

“Global warming is a serious issue,” said Natalie Gulsrud, a graduate of Ferris High School. “I am concerned about it. I am not apathetic. I will hold the Clinton administration responsible.”

Gulsrud, along with Deborah Hamilton, a ‘98 graduate of Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene, will travel to The Hague, Netherlands, as badged members of the United Nations conference and representatives of the environmental group Greenpeace.

The two, now friends and students at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, are among 200 college students from the United States who were invited to attend the conference.

They’ll miss Thanksgiving with their families, but will have an opportunity of a lifetime, Hamilton said.

For about two weeks, the students and other negotiators will try to figure out how to cut carbon-compound gas emissions, which scientists say cause global warming.

The cuts were called for in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement brokered by Vice President Al Gore in 1997. The protocol says that by 2008 to 2012, greenhouse gas emissions in the United States must be cut by 7 percent of the 1990 rate. But emissions in this country have actually gone up, scientists say.

European nations have accused the United States of not doing enough. George W. Bush, who may become the next president, opposes the Kyoto Protocol because developing countries - including China - won’t be required to decrease emissions.

The United States is now promoting nuclear power as the clean energy source for the future, Gulsrud said.

“The U.S. is looking at Band-Aid solutions,” she said. “We can’t be using nuclear power as a clean energy source.”

Gulsrud and Hamilton were chosen to attend the conference by Ozone Action, a nonprofit group that merged with Greenpeace earlier this year. The students had to raise their own money to pay for the plane fare. They’re staying at a youth hostel and plan to invite Gore and other U.S. delegates over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Hamilton, 21, has debated for many years and was chosen to be part of the negotiating team. Gulsrud, 20, will work with the media.

Hamilton, an English literature major, recently worked on the Heritage Forest Campaign, which supports national forests and roadless areas. She also attended protests during the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle last year.

“It was great to see such a diverse community present,” Hamilton said. “It was moving to have everyone there standing up for the same cause.”

Gulsrud, a sophomore who’s majoring in English literature, women’s studies and environmental studies, is no stranger to European politics. After graduating from Ferris in 1998, she spent about a year studying in Germany and working with Congress Bundestag, a program that involves students with the German government. She’s returning there next year to study comparative politics and work with Germany’s Green Party.

She attended a conference last summer in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Free the Planet, a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental awareness on college campuses. That’s where she got the idea to go to The Hague.

Hamilton, a junior, became more involved in environmental issues after her first year at PLU. That’s when she became an active member of GREAN - Grass Roots Environmental Action Now.

But the two have been concerned about the environment since they were little, their parents say. Although their schools didn’t have an environmental club at the time, both did little things to effect change - from walking to school and packing a lunch to speaking out in defense of forests, clean air and other issues despite the sometimes conservative atmosphere in the Inland Northwest.

Hamilton grew up outside of Coeur d’Alene and always loved the outdoors. Although her parents, Rita and George Hamilton, were never activists, Hamilton said, they influenced her to take care of the environment around her.

“We’ve taught her that material things aren’t important,” Rita Hamilton said. “I really believe that the ground we’re on isn’t property. We’re only holding it for generations to come.”

For Gulsrud, love for the environment also started at home - from her father’s organic garden, family trips to the lake or mountains, the kitchen scraps she dumped into the compost bin.

Her parents, Peter and Mary Ellen Gulsrud, have always been active in the community. Peter, a chemistry teacher at Shadle Park High School, also gave his daughter a passion for science and a desire to know, Natalie Gulsrud said.

Both sets of parents have found inspiration in their daughters, they say. They’re proud of them and are confident of their success.

“I think a lot of young people are a lot more open to preserving the environment than their parents and grandparents,” said Rita Hamilton. “There’s hope with the younger generation.”