Have fun and learn from Dave Finnigan from Juggling for Success and Climate Change is Elementary.

First Post in the New Event Circle #2 Interview Series for 2010 that will focus on youth and sustainability.

How do you view the track record of your local Police Dept. on community relations, crime prevention programs and youth violence?

You have really touched a nerve here. Community relations is always a facade. In our town police have two sets of standards. One is for white middle class "taxpayers" who they protect and the other is for the "underclass" which is people of color, teens and "outsiders." My dark-skinned Asian wife and mixed race kids for instance have found themselves targeted by the local police for no reason except race and age. They are stopped by the police and their ID is checked because they are DWNW (Driving While Non-White) It's unfortunate but most of the kids who grow up in our town don't want to come back and live here. There is no place in our town for kids to congregate.

The parks are closed at dusk and the downtown is pretty much off limits for anything except strolling or sitting. Whenever we suggest a skateboard Park they town fathers contend that it is a liability issue. But what they won't accept is that there is no liability for communities because the State of Florida exempts municipalities and HOAs from being sued for liability with regard to skate board parks. The Sheriff's deputies are very hostile to our kids in general and the town is especially hostile to kids of color.

Green is rapidly becoming a commercial blurr in the media and the global mind; a clique? How do you keep the sustainability movement fresh and focused?

I work only locally in my town and in towns around the US where I start school-based programs. It is like tossing a pebble into the pond. It is up to the Green Team at each school to pick up where I leave them (or not) and to move forward with their own plan for their own community. You can lead a school to environmentalism, but you can't make them stay there.

How do you define localization? Is this a top-down or a bottom-up process?

I've worked my whole life on "Bubble Up" programs which actually work to effect change, rather than "trickle down" which does not take local initiative or idiosyncratic ideas into account. This is true of the Family Planning programs we helped develop in South Korea and Taiwan where we trained tens of thousands of school teachers and village level field workers to work with mothers particularly on small family size. The average number of kids went from over 5 to 2 in a decade thanks to these programs that used the "green energy" of school teachers and health workers to change a culture entirely.

This is why I am not a supporter of Cap and Trade, which is just a way for a few people to "gamble" on the future of carbon. The real changes in carbon usage will come when we all start to change our behaviors because it is the right thing to do. That is where kids come in. At this point they are not getting messages which help them to make good decisions. Adults are scared of the issues, and afraid of empowering the youth. My job is to empower young people to take control of their future.

How much can juggling really teach? Is this "sustainable" activity? If not, how can it be?

Juggling has been a stepping stone for me. First I spent a decade in Asian Family Planning programs where I learned how cultures change, through information, education, communication and empowerment of people at the village level. Then juggling took me into over 2,000 elementary schools in 41 states and 12 countries. This travel helped me to see how kids, parents and teachers are the foundation on which a program of change can be built. If you leave out households, you are just working with elites. In the new program juggling is a way to gain the friendship and trust of the kids in schools on Day 1 of a two day program.

We have a new twist. Instead of using nylon scarves imported from Asia to learn to juggle, we will be using plastic bags that kids bring from home. They must be bags that would have ended up in the trash anyway. Then on Day 2 they learn the "hard stuff" about climate change, but they learn through interaction and activity, not by listening to a lecture. They go to the gym where they become frogs, and polar bears and penguins. There is music and movement and fun. It is only because I have taught over 1,000,000 kids to juggle with slow moving nylon scarves that I am able to design this sort of program that is a combination of science, music, and PE. Our theme is "No fear, no guilt, lots of FUN, ends in hope!" Juggling is part of the fun.

How are climate change activities competing with video games and "media down loads?"

I don't deal with video games and media downloads in our activity program. Everything we do when we are in the school is interactive and non-electronic, "no batteries required." But after our team leaves the school the kids will be able to go on line to their own closed and password protected social network where they post their profile and get a chance to have a "farmville-like" experience while reducing the carbon in their households and schools, and encouraging their friends to do the same.

It looks like MySpace is hot in your youth media-dominated world. How do you critique this tool?

Realize please that I work with kids who are too young for the usual social networks. MySpace is not part of what I am doing, I did build a profile there when everyone else did, but have not visited it for over a year. But FaceBook is very big with me, as are Linked in and Plaxo. Social networking is how I personally meet friends and make contacts now. It is a great way to stay tuned in. It is not yet appropriate for the kids I work with who are in K-6th grade, but our closed school-based social networks will help younger kids to be more adept when they are permitted to have Facebook accounts.

Who are the key enemies of green change in America?

Coal and oil companies, the US Chamber of Commerce, all the big transportation companies, agri-business, chemical companies, all the major retailers, the military-industrial complex. There is a long list of people who are dependent on the US remaining a consumption driven economy that keeps gobbling up resources. Personally I am promoting a steady state economy first forecast by EF Schumacher in Small is Beautiful, linking people, land and community. I really believe in the "re-indigenization" of the World, with people taking responsibility for their own place. We need to learn from the Native Americans how to value our own villages.

What are the top five causes in the youth movement?

Empowerment is the key to all causes. After that every person needs to choose the cause that is most important to them. If you feel that is Women's rights, that is your cause. If you want to work for better public transportation and less dependence on automobiles, that is your cause. Choose wisely because you do not have enough energy for more than a few.

Then focus on those few as if your life depended on it and have faith that there are other people equally well motivated who have focused on the ones you have left out. For instance I would love to spend time working on reducing meat in the American diet, or working with abused animals, or helping to find shelter for the homeless, but I have chosen as my causes:

1. The empowerment of Youth
2. Reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans
3. Revisiting the issue of population growth which we were forced to drop in the 1980s
4. Helping my town to begin to go green.

What new stories, symbols and myths are you creating / using in your work?

There are plenty of old stories that I use. For instance I teach all the kids about Pachamama, a Quechuan Indian term for "Mother Universe" which is bigger and more expansive than mere "Mother Earth." She is a good mother and everything alive is her child.

What is important to your kids at the intersection of arts and sustainability? Please illustrate with experiences from Climate Change is Elementary.

I use music and movement and introduce the concept of games into sustainability. For instance one grade becomes frogs, looking for a wet spot. We play "Musical lilly pads" and while the song, "Five Little Frogs" plays the kids hop around the gym going "ribbit" and looking for a place to land. When the music stops they have to find a puddle. Puddles keep disappearing and getting smaller until by the end of the song there are very few puddles and lots of frogs. Then we get to talk about what is happening to real frogs and we get to see some very colorful frog slides. I have over a half dozen equally fun and instructional sessions geared to appropriate grade levels.

What metrics are you using to measure the impact / effectiveness of Climate Change is Elementary and your other events?

Sociology Department of the University of Central Florida is doing the research on Two Years to Change to determine the impact of the program on use of energy and water by households that are enrolled in the program. It is being done totally at arms distance from the program so there is no chance that anyone presenting the program could have influence on the results. Results should be available by Fall 2011.

What is your leadership style? Is it harder to open up to kids or adults?

I am a kid. My leadership style is to be friends with all the other kids. I love them all, and they know it right away. Having a disabled child helps me to be able to slow down and work with "one little buckaroo" at a time. The kids know I'm different as soon as I walk into the school. It is required that one age, but it is not required that one grow up. When working with adults I tend to delegate areas of concern and let people self-actualize in the accomplishment of their self-determined goals. Then they get pride in their work and can establish their own metric for success. My supervisory role is then to pat on the back and, when asked, to give people the benefit of 68 years of experience. My theme is "You can get more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

Do the kids interests and visions change from the country to the city? Are there different pressures?

Kids are kids. They share a culture. They all want to have a great present moment, which they know leads to a beautiful future and a happy life. They want parameters and freedom within the parameters. They want to know what you will permit, and then some test the edges, but most are just happy to be in the present moment. Kids don't want to be mean or petty or belittling or belittled. They do not want to be yelled at or treated as "lesser." I help them to see how we can have a great learning experience by creating a learning environment that is positive and self-rewarding and fun.

I try to be the kind of teacher I admired, one who listens well and includes everyone in the project. Urban downtown kids tend to be more distrustful, and they often do not have as many social skills that let them participate in the sort of freedom that I provide in my class. So sometimes I have to clamp down a little on them at first because that is the "teaching style" they know. But after the first five minutes I have loosened up and they realize that they'll have a lot more fun if they go along with the crazy juggler than if they stand there with their arms crossed and their eyes down-cast "hating" the fact that everyone else is having a great time. They start to play along with the rest and soon the recalcitrant kids are smiling and trying and succeeding. Suburban and rural kids are often miles ahead in social skills, physical skills and ability to have fun within limits. They are a breeze, and we usually are in sync right away. Nobody yells at them in school or at home so they expect to be treated as little adults.

Tell us about your creative tools for global/personal transformation?

We are developing systems that take kids far beyond mere awareness of problems of the environment and population. We have a very specific program that works with teachers, kids and parents to take them step by step through a culture change paradigm that has been thoroughly tested in countries around the World from mere Awareness to Interest, to Trial, to Evaluation of the results of the trial, to Adoption of the new idea and on to Advocacy. For more information on the Social Science model see my article. For details on the creative tools being used throughout the entire program, see the rest of the website and the film.

We made it!! The Green Movement is a success!! What do you see now in your home town, Dave?

In my home town, Celebration Florida, which was built by Disney, I am regarded as the local iconoclast. I am working with a core of "greenies" to help this "company town" revise its culture to be more caring toward the environment, in the footsteps of the Walt Disney who created so many landmarks of environmentalism. We all know he had his dark side, and some may question the efficacy of theme parks as form of recreation, but they exist and it is better to do what EF Schumacher told us to do way back in 1970 - "Think globally, but work locally." Our group is just getting together, but I hope that ten years from now we can look back proudly and say we were leaders in the greening of America.

This has been a fun way to spend two hours, but it is time to get back to saving the World! Thanks for understanding that some of us who have been here a long time can be resources for the younger generation.