Youth Submission to ClimateReady
January 10, 2020
Dear ClimateReady: Preparing Together Team,
CC: Premier John Horgan, Minister George Heyman; Andrew Weaver; Mark Zacharias; Jeremy Hewitt We are writing to you as concerned youth from across British Columbia to provide input on the BC Government’s Climate Readiness Plan, ClimateReady, public input process. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide our ideas and insights into one of the most important plans that our province will make this half of the century.
Unequivocally, this is a plan for our future.
We want to make sure that we — and by we, we mean all of the young people across British Columbia, not only those of us privileged enough to have time to write and add ideas to this process — are protected, our values are upheld, and that we can guarantee a better future for those who come after us.
We think it is important that you remember where we have come from in this process before we provide direct feedback into the specifics of policies, investments, and programs that the province will undertake to protect us from the climate crisis.
Millennials were born roughly between the years of 1982 and 1995, while Gen Z began between the years of 1995 and 2000. In climatological terms, this means that our two generations, the youngest, and the largest demographic group in human history, are also the generation of human-caused climate change.
Our entire lives have been shaped by both the stories, and the real impacts of climate change.
Many of us do not remember a time before climate change was an issue to be discussed, and all of us have been shaped by events — like the fires of Fort McMurray and the interior of British Columbia, the flooding of Hurricane Sandy, the droughts that have helped drive the Syrian Civil War — that signify the omnipresence of climate crisis as an issue in our lives. The climate crisis is no longer forthcoming; we are already living within it.
All of us now, too, have had decades to consider the world that we will build if we meaningfully address climate change, too. A world with millions fewer deaths due to air pollution, a world with clean, drinkable water for all; a world with thriving natural landscapes and thriving biodiversity; a world with safe streets,