I've seen my future, and it's scary. It involves hurricanes, floods, destruction, mass evacuations, disease, and death. Hurricane Katrina and the week after it were a serious wakeup call for me.
Youth the force, Luke.
Climate change promises me that in my lifetime, I will experience many more events like this. As a young person, I can't help but gnash my teeth at the people and events that have led us to this crucial point in the world's history, and wonder why we still refuse to acknowledge and take meaningful action against our own self-destruction.
As a young person, I believe it is my responsibility to pay attention to the world around me, to have hope for the future, and to effect positive change. But at this moment, hope is a little hard to come by.
As I look around me, I'm frightened. Climate change is happening. All I have to do is look back on the past year and remember the rain and mudslides in Southern California, the tornadoes in San Francisco, the hurricanes that hit Florida, the severe drought in the Midwest, and the deadly heat waves in the Southwest -- all unprecedented and "out of the ordinary."
All I have to do is watch the news right now and see the increasing outbreaks of West Nile virus all over the country and the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. I just have to listen to stories from my home on the Navajo Nation about the difficulty of growing crops, raising animals, finding medicines, and living a traditional lifestyle. Taken as a whole, these kinds of events convince me that climate change is very real.
As I look around me, I'm also angry. Scientists, environmental and social-justice organizations, and regular people who live close to the earth have been warning us about this for decades. Our sickening addiction to fossil fuels; our need to constantly bulldoze, dig, and pump; our self-afflicted enslavement to the burning of coal, oil, and gas; our never-ending emissions of CO2 -- all these causes of global warming are killing our planet, killing us, and killing our future.
And still, Americans continue to question the reality of climate change. Our government continues to ignore its risks and implications, and refuses to take action. Big energy continues to fight tooth and nail to preserve our fossil-fuel energy-based society, knowing full well our future is at stake. Why are our leaders sacrificing my future and the livelihood of future generations?
Looking at the world around me, I must admit, I'm discouraged by what I see. We are past the point of no return, and we will face many more Katrinas. In my lifetime, I'll witness more destructive droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, widespread disease, refugees, and the extinction of plants, animals, and cultures.
But as a young person, it is my responsibility to have hope. I hope that in my lifetime, I will also witness an awakening and rebirth of our society, in which sustainability, equity, foresight, and compassion are valued. I believe that it is possible. I believe there is a better way to do things. And I believe that we have the ability to make this change.
As a young person, it is also my responsibility to go a step further and work to change things. Today, I work for organizations dedicated to the creation and implementation of climate policies that are efficient and fair for everyone. I work every day so that I can change what I don't like in the world, and so that my hopes are realized.
But you don't have to work for an environmental organization to make a difference. There are a number of things one can do to stop climate change, and it starts with paying attention to the world around you. These responsibilities belong to everyone. The fact that people have forgotten is the problem.
Feed the world sustainably by 2050? Yes, we can!
The Copenhagen Conference on food security
Comments
View as Threaded
Liora Leah Posted 9:45 am
05 Oct 2005
Permalink
SnoDragon Posted 12:49 am
06 Oct 2005
But I digress: I try to be politically active and make politicians aware of my concern, but it feels increasingly futile, especially given the outcome of the 2004 election and the mandate that Pres. Bush has taken that outcome as. I, too, feel frustrated and angry and scared. But what more can we possibly do but wait until we can take over? Even if by then it is too late?
Permalink
Sishongjerry Posted 2:07 am
20 Oct 2005
I am not religious, this is not a preachy type comment.
What I mean to say is, yes, the earth is going through alot, but it always has and always will. maybe the earth is sick of us, and is ready to get rid of us. Are we so cocky that we think the earth, which has been around for billions of years, long before we were even thought of, needs us to save it? The earth gave us life, how could we even presume that we could actually cause any real destruction? Granted I'm all about trying to make the world a better cleaner place, but that's simple grooming.
And don't worry, the fossil fuels would come back if we stopped burying our dead in concrete boxes.
The earth was here long before us and will be here long after, who's to say that the changes we see now were not meant to happen, running along the normal course of our worlds lifespan. We have proof that there have been many climate upheavals throughtout all time, and these have caused mass extinctions, the dinosaurs and wolly mammoths, so far as I know, did not drive cars, or burn fossil fuels, or release ozone depleting gases to bring on these changes, the earth just did it. We don't know enough about a planet's lifespan to accurately say anything about what we may or may not be doing to hurt the environment.
The world may not be a great place for my great great great grandchildren, but who is to say it ever would have been without our polution, we just don't know enough. Maybe the earth is actually improving in aspects that we cannot see or measure, what if the end all be all for the earth was for us to create plastics and dump them in landfills. Now that the earth has plenty of that, it's done with us, it has plastic. (Sorry stole from George Carlin there).
I have so much more to say, but it's just ranting so I'll close with this, Things move on, things, change, it's the course of life, nothing is immune, humans, planets, galaxies, things live, change, and die, regardless of our efforts, besides, do you really want to live in a world where nothing ever died, and nothing ever changed, now that's scary, I'm for the excitement of change, and if the earth kills us off, so be it it's the earth, come on, what can you do?
Permalink