As photo curator for 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, I had the privilege of going through the 20,000 photos that inundated our flickr account. Through this process, my heart started filling with all of your visual stories, the laughter, the sincerity, the time and effort it took to put an event together.
Out of all the photos that came in, the shots that evoked gasps or rapid chat messages to other 350 organizers were the photos of children and babies.
People have different theories on how to raise children and whether or not they should be involved in campaigns before they have consciousness or opinions. Speaking as a former infant participating in environmental protests, I am an in full support of the 350kids movement.
When I was 18 months old, my town, which had a population of 
2,000, was cited for a landfill and an incinerator. This sparked my mother, who had 6 children into a career of community activism. In her way of keeping us close, I went wherever she was. You can see in the photo to the right my wardrobe became a platform for strategic messaging, "Don’t Dump On Me."
It’s no surprise to me that the largest scariest issue we’ve ever faced has parents getting their children involved, educating them early, and teaching them the value of civic engagement.
Of course, when it comes down to it, kids are just also really really adorable. Combining the invaluable experience of involving children at a young age and their unbearable cuteness, we’ve created the 350Kids set and 350cute & 350adorbs tags. So send your 350kid photos to [email protected] and we’ll add them to the growing set of painfully cute photos.
Feel free to spread the cute heart warming photos throughout your networks. After all, they are our hopeful future.