To fix our climate emergency, listen to the kids

Plus a contest with a free gift for the winner

“Maybe [my grandchildren] will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.” Greta Thunberg’s dare levitated between Kai and I. He placed a hand on my forearm. I gazed out the window to hide my tears. Because we were sharing headphones, Kai was forced to turn toward the reality outside the air-conditioned bus window.

Just like the outskirts of every metropolis we’d encountered in Latin America, our arrival in Barranquilla, one of the largest cities on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, was announced by the shantytown. Mountains of plastic dwarfed the dilapidated wood and metal structures. Cola bottles, the bottom halves of Barbies and superheroes, fishing nets, syringes and Styrofoam color the wetlands. Along the river roadside debris danced into the darkened sea. For miles, plastic carpeted this land. Once a haven for migrating birds and native people, now a seabird dove into our trash. 

Greta Thunberg whispered about humanity’s paralysis.

Kai tried to look away. “We have to look,” I said, for a split second, imagining my son could save us from all this.

“Can we listen to something else?” Kai said when the audience of grown ups finished applauding Greta Thunberg, the face of our future, our next great hope.

Our kids aren’t born leaders

As an activist and a teacher, I want my kids to want to be change-makers. But the truth is that they’d much rather be playing soccer, or beating my husband Eddie in FIFA, than witnessing our climate emergency.

Oh sure, I constantly shoved climate news down their throats—peppering our dinner conversations with facts about oil industry’s crimes, our melting glaciers, wildfires; I spiced our annual vacation with trips to see places that might not exist in their lifetimes, all the while lecturing them on what we can do to fix this mess.

But inevitably, it always got to be too much. One of them would shift the conversation with “Did you hear who got traded to the Arsenal soccer team?” or “Who farted?”

Late at night when I complained about their apathy to Eddie, saying I need them to be more engaged, he reminded me that I can’t just expect that they’ll be the next Greta Thunberg, or even a climate warrior version of Colin Kaepernick.

But I couldn’t help wanting that.

Sparking their interest

I doubled down on trying to engage them in the climate fight. I started teaching an environmental activism class at their school. Forced the kids to learn about youth climate leaders like Alexandra Villasenor and Felix Finkbeiner leading climate marches and planting trees. I taught them about the kids suing the federal government about the future they’re leaving in their wake.

In their school, some of the kids wrote passionate manifestos about the state of our Earth, so I scored our class prime spots as speakers at a local climate march.

But my sons didn’t want to speak at the event. I couldn’t believe it. What had I done wrong?

That afternoon, I met Eddie and the boys at the march. My students were up there rallying the crowd with inspiring speeches, hyping up the Prius drivers and the vegan grandparents.

Kai and Nikko stood under an oak tree, soaking up the shade.

Later that night, I asked why they didn’t join in that day, and Kai shrugged, saying, “It’s not my thing.”

What is your thing?

I posed this question, knowing before they responded that my kids would say soccer, video games, friends, family, food. But I was in the middle of a unit in my writing class up at UCSC about the power for observation, and wondered if I could use those techniques to better understand my sons’ apathy.

So that weekend, we went to the forest near our house. I decided to back off and let them lead our walk. Kai led us across the creek to the fallen redwood, urging us all to cross the tree to feel how soft the bark really was. Nikko asked if we’d follow him up a steep hill, his need to climb, to best challenges, being the focus of all his efforts.

In this way, I started actually seeing them: how they delighted in the shade; how Nikko quieted when the trickle of the stream could be heard; how Kai would pause for a moment and take in the dappled light through the redwoods; how excited they grew over a banana slug, a crawfish, a hawk soaring over us, a nest, sap coming out of a cut down redwood.

This Week’s Action

This week, I’m not going to ask you to take a direct action, since I assume many of you (at least in the US) are wrapped up in the 2020 election drama. All I want you to do this week is to take a young person into nature, and let them lead.

Follow their interests: Are they joyous about shade on a hot day? Do they spend ages inspecting a potato bug? Do they challenge their bodies trying to climb trees?

Listen to them. What matters to them? What do they care about? Pay attention to what aspects of the natural world speak directly to them.

If you don’t have a young person nearby, go into nature and observe the youth in that space. Pay attention to not just what they interact with, but also how.

Remember, we’re borrowing this planet from them. What do they want to make sure they have access to in their future?

And one last little thing…

We need a name for our community of changemakers. We’re not all parents, but we all care about the youth and the future of this planet.

Please comment below with ideas you have to name us as a collective. The winning name will get a free macrame plant hanger hand-knotted by yours truly (it’s my new pandemic hobby).

And if you like this newsletter, please share it with your friends. We can’t do this work alone.

Until next week…