Last Friday, I joined students around the globe as they struck from their classes to let the world know, it is time for action to confront our climate emergency.
Swedish 16 year old student, Greta Thunberg, has been striking every Friday for the past year from her classes in front of the Swedish Parliament to let legislators know they must act to change carbon emissions. This past week in the US, she has testified before Congress and spoken before the UN Climate Action Summit urging action. Her impassioned plea to the United Nations can be watched here: https://youtu.be/KAJsdgTPJpU. She, along with millions of other students, are telling adults, “You have failed us.” She submitted the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report for her testimony before Congress. “Listen to the science.” She said, It isn’t about your beliefs, it is about facts.
Greta, along with many other youth activists, are working to educate legislator and corporate leaders. Advocacy groups like 350.org, Sunrise, Climate Hawks, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and EarthJustice are helping activate action by raising awareness of the dire consequences if we do not act now. Solutions are available, if we let our leaders know we need to invest in technology, education and actions.
This blog platform was initiated when I was Sustainability Coordinator for St. Louis Community College (2010-2012). I helped the college save in one year my salary (53 K) as we implemented energy, waste management, water, transportation, buildings, paper saving strategies across 7 campuses. Leadership believed in making upfront investment so that savings paid off in efficiency. It was awesome to have their support.
Moving behavior and beliefs is what I have a degree in (Clinical Psychology). But it was a challenge to help people see that these changes were important to sustain not only the budgets at the college, but for our community’s carbon footprint.
My climate commitment is to continue to offer solutions here so that I can help move action forward with my perspective and research. I hope you will join me and share strategies you find to help us keep global emissions below 1.5 degrees Celsius warming to slow cascading consequences like species extinction.