A Few Reflections a Few Months Out

Written by Caroline / 31 May 2009 / Read Caroline's latest blog entries.

When 20 young people set off across a nation of a billion in three tiny electric cars, it's never quite certain how large their impact will be, how loud their voices can reach. But when those 20 young people have a network of 300,000 behind them and have a vision large enough to include a truly sustainable planet and a new paradigm of development in India, their voices may end up louder than anyone imagined.

We set off across India, from Chennai to Delhi, passing through 20 major Indian metros, not quite knowing what the end product would be. After months of planning, enormous highs and extreme lows, the journey flew by with the same level of emotional extremes as the preparations. We created the project and the journey to discover India's climate solutions and to showcase and share them with the world, while also having a desire to demonstrate another vision. We wanted to show that the impossible was possible, that dreams could become reality, and that sustainable lifestyles could be fun, exciting, thrilling, and incredible!

When our journey ended in New Delhi, we had met so many incredible people -- from biogas entrepreneurs to solar princes, from village women who made fertilizer from cow urine to the first female President of India, millionaire CEOs to ragpickers in the largest slum in India, women making paper from dung to women making solar lanterns from silicon -- and found the unbelievable within ourselves. We were shocked when Tom Friedman wrote about us in the NY Times, only to realize that his words allowed our solutions to reach the planet. Since then, we've connected with Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines and students in Israel biking across the nation. We've linked artists and implementors, visionaries and leaders. We've learned ourselves what it means to lead, and convinced ourselves not only what we want the world to look like but how we want to take it there.