Climate Change It’s for real...
TAKE ACTION —LIKE— YOUR WORLD DEPENDS ON IT By Sarah Goody Junior, Redwood High School
I
was in 6th grade when I first learned about the climate crisis. Even at that age, I wondered why I hadn’t been exposed to the crisis earlier. I felt like the world had been keeping a big, dark secret from me, and I wished I had known about it sooner. Should I have blamed
the adults around me? It seemed like they were just trying to protect my youthful innocence and probably didn’t know what to say. But shouldn’t they have let me know how our climate was changing? I mean, how do you explain wildfires and hurricanes to kids anyway? When addressing the climate crisis with children, I believe you have to get to the root of the problem and share with them the reality of how climate change impacts them and how they can act to address the problem. Once I started taking action my-
self, I realized how many young people were passionate about this topic. Beyond that, I realized the special power that we have, and the creativity and passion we bring to the climate movement. I also realized just how important it is to educate youth about the topics affecting our lives and to provide us with resources to take action and fight for a better future. We can not hide our children from this crisis forever, therefore why not start educating us about it now, so we have the opportunity to take action before it’s too late? By educating youth and fostering youth activism from a young age, we can teach the next generation that we are powerful and that we have the capability to change the world. I did not grow up in a household where youth activism was something we talked about. In fact, I didn’t even know what activism was until I started doing it. I see how this affected my childhood and confidence. When I first learned about climate change, I felt like I couldn’t do anything because I had never been taught that I had power or that my words or actions could facilitate change. As a child, society doesn’t allow me to vote until I am 18, and adults routinely tell me I shouldn’t worry about politics or world issues because that’s what adults are supposed to do. Even though it shouldn’t be the youth’s responsibility to take on these issues, I believe that by teaching kids about activism from
PROUD TO SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION.
a young age it installs confidence in us and the idea that we have the power to make a difference on the issues they are passionate about. In a world of Disney princesses and pop stars, the youth climate movement gives kids realistic, strong, powerful role models to aspire to. We should be uplifting the voices of young climate activists in our households so our children can see themselves reflected in powerful leaders. When I was younger, everything was centered around my favorite Disney princess: Cinderella. Even at age two, I was deeply affected by modern beauty standards. I believed that I wasn’t beautiful because my hair wasn’t blonde and my eyes weren’t blue, and that all I needed in life was to find a prince charming. By bringing the messages of youth climate activists into households we can teach children to value helping others over finding a prince, and that there is no perfect depiction of beauty. It is extremely important for kids, especially young girls to grow up with strong role models like the young people leading the global climate movement. The coronavirus has amplified the need to educate children about the existential threats that climate change poses on humanity and the importance of fostering activism in young children. This pandemic has shown us that it is possible for communities to come together and take action quickly to avoid disaster. We saw how when faced with the threat of the coronavirus, government officials were able to take monumentous actions like shutting down state borders and ordering shelter in place in a matter of days. This shows that it is possible for governments to mobilize quickly to stop the climate crisis. If government officials and leaders truly cared about saving society from the climate crisis they could work together to take urgent action to stop the emergency as they did with COVID19. We only have a short period of time to take action to reverse climate change before we hit a tipping point where our world will forever be damaged. It is time to educate and utilize one of our best resources — our youth — to bring attention to this crisis as our futures are the ones at stake. We need to teach all children about the importance of fighting for a just, equitable, green future. You can’t keep the climate crisis from them forever, so why not start getting them involved and letting them have a say in what happens while there’s still hope.
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