Young leaders to gather at UA's Biosphere 2 to talk about global woes

The University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 will host a meeting of One Young World in May.

The international group, which convenes young leaders from throughout the world to propose solutions to global problems, will focus on the environment at the summit.

Joining the young people are counselors from a variety of fields, including a former astronaut, the only man to walk to both poles and the former president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo.

One Young World seeks to give young people the tools they need to turn their aspirations into actions, said Ella Robertson, the program’s director.

“If you’re 25 and you have an issue you care about and might be planning on doing yourself later, we show you how you need to be the change you want to see in your world,” Robertson said.

She said about half of the 500 young people she hopes to attract to the Biosphere 2 event will be from Arizona. Others will come from across the country and from as far away as Japan and Tajikistan.

She said the group, which held its first event in 2010, chose the Tucson region “because of the Biosphere and because of a fantastic partner in the UA, who are really interested in building a legacy in Tucson around young people and their interest in the environment.”

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She said the attendees will “meet a bunch of inspirational peers and hear from world leaders across their fields.”

She said previous gatherings of One Young World have spawned programs that have impacted 8.9 million people globally.

Robertson said one demonstration of the outfit’s reach is the story of Yeon-mi Park, a North Korean defector and human-rights activist whose 2014 speech at a One Young World summit in Dublin was viewed by 2 million people on YouTube.

Joaquin Ruiz, UA vice president for innovation and strategy, said the University is “happy to partner with them at the Biosphere’s 25th anniversary — looking at it as an icon for the environment.”

Former Biospherians Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, who now head the space tourism venture World View, will also serve as counselors at the gathering.

“I’m actually quite excited about it because in the end one of the things Tucson is all about is sustainability and this will bring our community and the university to the national limelight,” said Ruiz, who is also dean of the UA College of Science.

Celebrity counselors include CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray and actor and sustainability advocate Adrian Grenier, of the HBO series “Entourage.”