Editor:
Last summer was the hottest on record. Ever. And the one before that was the hottest, and the one before that. We’ve been seeing hurricanes out of hurricane season, some of the most severe wildfires ever displacing millions of people. My grandparents in Detroit saw their city’s streets flooded in August. Climate change is real, and we can’t run. Our ice caps are melting and it seems like 1.5 degrees of warming are inevitable. But it’s not.
When we encounter issues like this, that are big and very complicated, we have a tendency to act like someone else is going to clean up our mess than actually make changes.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. From small actions, like buying your clothes second hand or eating a meatless meal once a week, to big actions, like buying an electric car or choosing a more efficient heating system, we can make a change. If the people of Edmonds learn about the tax reductions on electric cars, how much carbon is emitted from meat production, the benefits of composting, they will make changes.
We all have a choice. To keep closing our eyes, and pretending like nothing is happening, or to take action. You can choose to stand with my future and the future of so many other kids. While it may feel impossible, and like a newspaper in Washington won’t have any effect, it will.
Thank you,
Danielle D’Couto, Maplewood K-8 student
Edmonds
What record is that? No doubt the climate is changing has changed and will change it always has. No doubt we can be better stewards of our environment but the emergency? Your 1.5 degrees is already baked in no amount of money will stop it but you know what will a global catastrophe event. Maybe we should be spending our money on being more resilient and less on a emergency we can’t prevent that is unless we want to go back to the Stone age.
Thank you for this important reminder of the evidence for climate change, of some behaviors all of us can consider changing, and of what is at stake. Yes, Earth’s 4 billion-year-plus history shows its climate has changed many times, and Earth’s flora and fauna have recovered from vast extinctions. Many species will survive the current anthropogenic climate change, but many may not, including our own. Or if we do, not in a way we might want.
Thank you, Danielle, for (seemingly) small changes we ALL can make to help reduce the impacts of climate change. (And please remember our fantastic Senior Center Thrift Store when donating or buying items that save things from going into the landfill)
It is empowering to implement positive changes in our lives, rather than just sit on the sidelines and bemoan the facts of climate change. Bravo!
What an excellent letter, Danielle. Young people like you may not yet be able to vote, but you can remind everyone how your future is in jeopardy. And Edmonds, being a waterfront town, has much to lose as sea levels rise. We can make choices that model for others what can be done on an individual basis as you suggested. We can also push our politicians to believe in the science and make the changes in policy needed to ensure the worst is less likely to occur. Mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, wouldn’t you do anything to make sure your children have a livable future? Don’t listen to the oil and gas companies paying for disinformation. They are stealing your Children’s’ future.
Edmonds by itself can’t make a global difference, but we can recognize and take action on the things we can do to help that difference.
Let’s have some city leadership on the things we can do locally such as setting up a trade in/credit plan to encourage the conversion of lawn equipment from gas to electric. Those little gas engines pollute way beyond their size, and less noise pollution wouldn’t hurt either.
Set up a styrofoam recycling system to keep all that plastic out of the landfill. There is a successful system working on Vashon.
Encourage a dark sky city to cut down on unnecessary night time energy use and light pollution.
Thank you Danielle for writing this informative and thought provoking letter. Our children’s futures are affected by the choices we make now.
Just think we will soon have our very own Climate Action Manager to manage our lawn mower trade in plan for switching to electric tools. An obvious very important town business function that has gone ignored for far too long. This should absolutely be made mandatory in order to be sure we save the planet. It’s right up there with that glaring need for an emergency waterfront connector. Now, if we could just get that state of the art poop cooker to cook our poop for resale to farmers; we would be the Climate Action envy of the entire state. Another feather in our municipal cap of potential perfection.
I’m pretty sure you didn’t get quite as acerbic as you otherwise could have in response to the student author of this letter. What held you back Clinton? I, other commenters here, appreciate that Danielle cares enough to write a letter such as this one and put herself out there for responses, such as yours. One day Danielle will be voting and possibly even more in regard to stewarding this planet which so far, we have not as humans done a very well it seems.
Good morning Pamela. I was actually responding more to Mr. Sandell’s comment than the author’s LTE. I totally agree with the young author that we need to take climate change seriously as a city, a nation, and a world but we need to stop scaring people like the author (and each other) to death by being profits of pending doom constantly; and doing a bunch of largely symbolic things that aren’t really going to have much impact on the whole situation. We need to approach this from the view of science and common sense, rather than government mandates and expensive attempts at “fixes” that really don’t fix anything. Much of this climate business is a function of over human population and useless greed and those things tend to be self correcting over time. I suggest you check out Bill Gate’s and Bill Nye’s (the science guy) latest views on climate change and how to deal with it.
Some of us will not be around to personally experience much of the effects of the damage humans have done to our planet, but young people like Danielle and our grandchildren will be. They will be the ones to suffer and they have every right to ask the “grownups” for help.
Thank you, Danielle, for your eloquent letter regarding the climate crisis. I particularly liked that you included examples of some actions that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a mother and grandmother, I stand with you to secure the best possible future for all our youth!
Climate is not always changing. For the past 12,000 years until the industrial revolution it was quite constant with CO2 at 280 ppm. Now it’s at 420 ppm and temperatures have not been seen this high for 100,000 years. According to Nobel laureates MIT National Academy of Sciences, and other experts the most effective step is to put a price on carbon and return pollution fees as a cash back to every American. If we replace the foot draggers in Congress, we can get this done.
Jan yes it has been warming since the end of the last ice age you could argue that it has accelerated in the last few hundred years and that humans are contributing to that. But it has been warming the whole time.
No, after brief warming the temperatures were flat for 8,000 years (not 12,000), then cooling (!), until we produced billions of tons of CO2. This produced a huge spike in temperatures.
See the graph at
https://kottke.org/13/09/temperature-chart-for-the-last-11000-years
Thanks for the graph it shows 6000 years of warming and 5000 years or cooling with rising temperatures in the last few hundred years the article even speculates that without this warming we may have slipped into another ice age. The graff also shows we humans prospered during a period of much warmer temperatures. So in conclusion we need to be careful what we wish for.
What an excellent letter, Danielle! You point out the common coping mechanism: denial. And you offer solutions that make a difference and could even enrich our lives!
Thank you Danielle for caring enough to write. One of the issues largely overlooked are the contributions that trees, grasses, plantings, and permeable surfaces make to our world. The more we remove trees and greenery, replacing them with concrete, asphalt, brick, large buildings, sidewalks, and paved surfaces, the warmer and hotter our world will be. These surfaces absorb and hold heat, creating a huge problem. We can all start in Edmonds by planting more trees in our yards. Our city planners, council, and mayor can demand and expect developers do their part as well. They need to stop approving zero lot line buildings, and require builders to stop removing all the vegetation just to make it easier to build. They also should be required to replace and add to all the trees and vegetation they removed with the same or better than what was removed. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to maintain their own private green space. Trees not only add oxygen to the air, they hold water and filter it before it goes back into the sound, they cool the air, prevent soil erosion, they are habitat for our wildlife, the list goes on and on. Let’s green up our beautiful city and lead the way to a healthier town.
Great letter, Danielle! Let’s hope some adults are listening.
Danielle D’Couto is right that you can do a lot in your own life to help stop global overheating. Part of what you do when you stop burning gasoline and natural gas is boycotting fossil fuels, and making greenhouse gas pollution less profitable. Another step is joining organizations to get your voice heard, like the Sunrise Movement (https://www.sunrisemovement.org/), Fridays for Future (https://fridaysforfuture.org/), Third Act (https://thirdact.org/), and 350 WA (https://www.350wa.org/cat).
Actually, see the graph at https://kottke.org/13/09/temperature-chart-for-the-last-11000-years
It shows 8,000 years of flat temps, then cooling, until the sharp spike in the last 100 or so years.
Danielle, thank you for your excellent contribution to the climate conversation. I, like so many others, do choose to stand with you, your future, and the future of so many other kids. It is young people like you who inspire me and give me hope. Working together, I believe we can get this done. Keep up the great work!
Personally, I think a great start would be to quit building 5 to 8 thousand square foot homes for one or two rich people to live in. Quit making babies you don’t have time to care for because you are busy trying to pay off that big mortgage and student loans; not to mention that brand new plug in electric hybrid SUV you just bought for $57,000 (but only $50,000 thanks to the government rebate so you just couldn’t pass that up). Stop clear cutting the Amazon Rain Forest to make more crop land and grazing land for animals to eat. Immediately stop planting any grass lawns that have to be fertilized and mowed constantly and start planting lots of native plants designed to grow where you live. Start growing edible plants on as much unused or poorly used land as possible. Stop flying over land masses in fossil fuel guzzling inefficient airplanes and build efficient diesel/electric high speed hybrid trains to haul people as well as freight economically. Stop driving any fossil fueled vehicles over 65MPH which would result in immediate 20% more fuel efficiency and less pollution (Jimmy Carter was right with his 55 speed limit but we are too impatient and greedy to ever accept that). Finally, stop choosing mad men to run countries based on lies and fear mongering.
Now this, Clinton, I can agree with. Thank you!
I applaud Danielle D’Couto’s articulate letter advocating action to curb carbon emissions and resulting global warming. Her generation did not create global warming but will live most of their lives with the increasingly devasting impacts of global warming.
Many adults deny global warming, are overwhelmed by an attempt to curb it, believe it is too inconvenient or costly to make the necessary changes to curb it, or are profiting immensely from the continued use of fossil fuels and are discouraging any transition away from fossil fuels. We remain on a trajectory toward 3.3 degrees Celsius of global warming. Research has shown the cost of devastating impacts of continued global warming will far outstrip the cost of implementing the necessary policies and infrastructure to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Individuals and families can transition to lower or non-carbon emitting sources of energy and transportation and make carbon reduction lifestyle changes to help effect a timely transition from fossil fuels and other carbon-emitting human activities.
However, it will take the action of governments at all levels for a successful transition from fossil fuels use, fertilizers, and methane producing activities to the already existing lower/zero carbon emitting alternatives. Two key actions for residents of Edmonds and Americans to take to reduce carbon emissions are to lobby politicians at all levels for policies that result in a
Well said, Danielle!
Closing this thread — thanks for your comments.