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Young World
Walk for a cause
PHOTO: AFP
SELF AWARENESS: Elephants too have it.
Children in nine countries have walked further than to the Moon and back as part of a campaign to cut the use of cars widely blamed for stoking global warming. "Children are telling their parents to do more to stop climate change," said Britta Freitag of the German-based Climate Alliance, which handed a suitcase stuffed with 618,315 paper "green footprints" to U.N. climate talks in Nairobi recently. About 100,000 children in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden and Turkey, cut out the shape of their foot on a piece of paper for every mile (1.6 km) they walked or biked instead of driving. The total of 618,315 miles (995,000 km), much of it walking to school instead of being driven, represents more than twice the 250,000 mile distance to the Moon or about 25 times around the Earth. "It is extremely important that young people get involved," said John Hay, spokesman of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat hosting the November 6-17 talks in Kenya.
COMPLIED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
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