Campaign for Environmental Literacy

Human life on this planet as we know it can not be maintained unless greater environmental literacy informs all of our endeavors.

--Jim Elder, Campaign for Environmental Literacy

In 2008, Campaign for Environmental Literacy is working hard to gain passage of the Higher Education Sustainability Act, which will authorize a new $50 million grant program to support sustainability projects on campuses across the country, and also to include environmental education in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. We also once again face dramatic cuts in funding to NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grants Program and the EPA's Environmental Education Grants Program which must be restored.

The Conference on Ocean Literacy June 7-8, 2006 in Washington DC featured 49 high level speakers, who addressed the pressing needs and opportunities for ocean literacy from many perspectives. The majority of the speakers spoke to how their personal voyages to become ocean literate citizens came from life-changing experiences: for the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, it was scuba diving with his son; for Silvia Earle, it was exploring parts of the ocean never seen before; for Bob Ballard, it was being in a submersible; and for former search-and-rescue Coast skipper and current Congressman from Mississippi Gene Taylor, it was navigating turbulent brackish waters that were unimaginable before Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home community.