What will we tell our children?

What will we tell our children? When they are faced with the effects of climate change gone unchecked?

We were worried it would hurt the economy. We didn’t want to change the way we travel, eat or live. We didn’t think it would actually happen — even though we had all the evidence needed, by scientist and directly witnessing storms growing more intense, record-breaking heat temperatures for the last 4 years, coral reefs and wildlife dying, drought and more wildfires.

The children being born now, they don’t even get a chance to make a difference. But we still can. This is not a Republican/Democrat issue, this challenge has no boundaries between countries, and it requires immediate action. This is our generation’s crisis.

I spend a lot of time researching and working on this issue because it affects us all. By addressing Climate Change we help social justice issues, animals, health, really any issue we face just gets intensified as Climate Change gets worse. We need to make Climate Change the biggest priority because without it- black lives, standing for the flag, abortion, LGBQT, women’s rights, all of that won’t even matter. We can still care about these issues, but put Climate Change first as a central mobilizing cause for which we can all unite.

I’m already quite worried that my young teenagers don’t have the hope and potential we all had. But I will be able to face them and tell them I did know, and I did not ignore this.

Whether or not you have children, how can we let the future generation inherit a future so bleak? How can we let all the amazing animals who share our planet go extinct when we can do something? Let’s take drastic measures and prolong what may be inevitable, but doesn’t need to be sped up.

We have to stop talking about what will happen if we take action on climate change, and start talking about what will happen if we don’t.