Sabrina Cowden: coordinating a common effort
Chris Pepple |
She works with grandmothers speaking to garden clubs and college seniors presenting to their peers. She works with seminarians, lawyers and teachers. She coordinates people across all political, economic and religious backgrounds. Sabrina Cowden (’91) serves as the logistics coordinator for The Climate Project (TCP), a nonprofit organization founded by Al Gore, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, with the mission of increasing public awareness of the climate crisis at a grassroots level throughout the United States and abroad.
TCP, based in Nashville, began operations in June 2006, just two months before Cowden joined the organization. By April 2007, a diverse group of 1000 volunteers from across the nation had been trained by Al Gore to present a slideshow version of the Academy Award-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Furthermore, TCP/Al Gore-training sessions have trained over 700 people in the UK, Australia and Spain with international trainings scheduled for India, China and Canada. Cowden coordinates a diverse group of volunteers who come together in a common effort of addressing environmental concerns.
“On the job, I am responsible for communications with 1000 people across the country and hundreds of trained volunteers outside of the United States. We have such a diverse group of volunteers because environmental concerns affect everyone. We want our message to reach a broad range of people across national borders, across gender, economic, religious and political lines,” said Cowden, who majored in speech communication and minored in management at Lipscomb.
The organization asks a lot from volunteers. They must complete an extensive application process, and then pay for their own accommodations as they travel to Nashville for training. The training and presentation materials are provided free of charge. Once the training is completed, volunteers sign a legal agreement committing them to host ten presentations within a year from the date of training.
“The wonderful thing about what we do is that we give the volunteers flexibility to tailor the presentation to the audience. They can present to their family members, their co-workers, their Bible class, their students. They can tailor the message to address specific concerns in their area or among their peers. Our volunteers have presented to over one million people. That’s an incredible accomplishment,” said Cowden.
Cowden knows that no social movement brings about immediate overwhelming success. Rather than demand extreme lifestyles changes, TCP asks people to review their lives and see if they can make incremental steps towards living in a more environmentally-friendly way. Through TCP, Cowden hopes to educate people in lifestyle approaches that are beneficial to the individual as well as beneficial to the world as a whole. People can replace four incandescent light bulbs in their home with compact fluorescent lights, for instance, and use up to 75% less energy in those light fixtures, save money and help protect the environment. People can plan driving routes carefully to reduce their gas costs and reduce harmful emissions. Buying energy-efficient appliances reduces the household costs for families and helps them live more lightly upon the earth. Cowden has taken these incremental steps in her own life so she is living as she hopes others choose to do.
“I realize that the natural world is a real gift to us. I grew up on a farm with cows and a large garden. My Dad was financially frugal. He taught us to be very conscious of our use of electricity and purchased products. I realize now that he lived a very sustainable lifestyle. He gave me a connection to the natural world, and his lifestyle made good business sense,” said Cowden.
“I think as Americans we are beginning to redefine success so sustainable lifestyles are broadly embraced. We are abandoning the picture of success that shows us a large house with all of the lights burning at night and a yard full of green grass. Now we know that we can live lightly on the earth and be financially successful. We can turn off lights not in use. We can landscape our yards with natural plants that require less water and less mowing. I hope I am helping to spread this message through my career choice and my personal life.”