PennFuture's Cool Pennsylvania campaign aims to stop the Commonwealth's contributions-- one percent of the world's total-- to global warming. Nearly 200 organizations, businesses, and citizens' groups have already endorsed the campaign, and the number continues to grow each day. More and more, people are realizing that the time to act is now, and that the solutions are within our grasp. The solutions range from increasing energy efficiency at home to switching to clean, renewable energy like wind power to eating locally-grown foods to working to change energy and transportation policies in Pennsylvania and the U.S. The consequences of not acting are grave, not only for our economy, environment, and health here at home, but also for people and places across the globe.

PennFuture's D.J. Trischler was fortunate to travel to Niger in Africa early this year as part of a trip with La Roche College. D.J. spent a great deal of time on the journey visiting with the Touareg (or Tuareg) people in Niger, a pastoralist group of Northwest African peoples who have lived in the Sahara region for centuries.

In this video podcast, D.J. shares some of his wonderful footage from the trip, and introduces us to a Touareg leader Issouf Ag Maha. Ag Maha speaks to the group (seated together around the fire in the evening) about the serious impacts of global warming on the Touareg people. He describes how desertification is increasing, that the traditional means for survival of their people are disappearing as rainfall decreases and agricultural production becomes less and less possible. As many people are recognizing, the impacts of global warming are affecting those people least equipped to deal with it, and the consequences are in fact life-threatening.

To learn more about how you can get involved in stopping global warming, visit our Cool Pennsylvania pages. There are two organizations based in the United States who are working for change on behalf of the Touareg and other tribal peoples: the Nomad Foundation and Rain for the Sahel and Sahara. For more information, e-mail as at podcast (at) pennfuture (dot) org. We welcome your comments on this and any other podcast; just click on "Comments" below to leave your thoughts or questions.