Pirate's Cove

So, all who live in the Los Angeles area should give up their modern lives

Letters to the Editor: A high school student’s plea — always remember the clean air of April 2020

To the editor: I am a high school junior in Los Angeles. Every school I have attended since kindergarten has celebrated Earth Day. My generation has grown up with a constant awareness of the imminent threat of climate change. We’re used to asking for straws and paying for grocery bags. We’ve missed school on Fridays to protest at City Hall. (“Happy 50th birthday, Earth Day,” editorial, April 22)

Right now, at a time when we cannot protest or bring our metal straws to brunch, we’ve seen the most dramatic change in our environment. We’re all stuck in our homes, unable to spend our weekends crawling to the beach on the 405 Freeway, polluting the air on the way to polluting the ocean. Instead we entertain ourselves with neighborhood walks and by engaging with nature.

This Earth Day, with the planet’s human inhabitants living in frustration and uncertainty, for once the Earth itself was at peace.

COVID-19 will not last forever, but we must ensure our planet will. Always remember the clear skies over Los Angeles in April 2020 and let it guide how we act when we start returning to normal. Remember the walks we took when there was nothing else to do. Remember the government’s ability to spend on a large scale and hold lawmakers accountable the next time we ask for action on climate change.

We must never forget the disaster that COVID-19 has caused, but we must always remember how beautiful the sky looked and how clean the air was to breathe. We must remind our lawmakers of nature’s unceasing role in our lives, with or without the threat of a pandemic.

First, the smog of the urban areas is not ‘climate change’. It is an environmental issue, while ‘climate change’ is a political issue. Second, these climate cultists are just taking advantage of people suffering.

Third

Practice what you preach, Alexandra Cohen and the rest of the young Warmists

Read: Young Climate Cultist Wants You To Remember LA’s Clean Air »

My feelings are “meh. This is all stupid. Go away. Practice what you preach”. Of course, this is CNN, which has a giant carbon footprint from all their world wide operations

Why facing our feelings is essential for tackling our climate crisis

Thirty years ago, I sat in a darkened lecture hall listening to what was happening to our Earth because of the decisions people had made. Climate change, toxic contamination, species loss, forest fires, soil depletion: it was a litany of all the ways humans had gone very wrong. At least, that’s how it felt to me, at age 19. Human behavior was directly influencing the globe’s weather patterns. It was almost unthinkable.

Apparently, it was so unthinkable for those around me — that people were literally not thinking about it.

There’s a big difference between not thinking about it because they’re worried and not thinking about it because they don’t give a rat’s ass, which is the reality. ‘Climate change’ is important in theory, not reality.

Meanwhile, my world was turned upside down, forcing me to reassess almost everything — how I traveled, what I ate, wore, what I drank out of, slept in, even put on my face — surprisingly intimate things. It also made me think about who I was in the world, and who I wanted to be. I did not identify as a scientist, activist or “radical.” Yet, at that time, those seemed to be the only people who understood our lethal and dangerous trajectory.

You don’t “identify” as a scientist: you either are or aren’t. This isn’t like their idiotic gender crap.

I tried talking with other people about it. I wanted to understand what I was feeling, and why others seemed somehow immune. Was it grief? Was it a unique, new kind of anxiety? A crisis of “epistemic trust” — the helplessness Dr. Daniel Siegel calls when the world no longer seems trustworthy?

It was all of the above. Yet at that time, not many people wanted to talk about it. This is now changing. And that’s a good thing, because it’s the ticket to our collective survival.

We are seeing huge numbers of people starting to bravely name their feelings, openly: I am scared. I feel overwhelmed. I feel powerlessness. I feel angry. Such as Hugh, who struggles with anxiety and wrote into CNN before the climate town hall, “I’ve been losing sleep after reading a report that talks about how climate change could lead to the collapse of civilization by 2050.” A few years ago, this comment would have seemed extreme. This is no longer the case. It just hasn’t been acknowledged as openly — until now. And that’s a very good thing, especially in this uncertain, anxious and precarious time.

I have a suggestion

The screed keeps going and going. Have at it if you want to.

Read: Facing Our Feelings Is Totally Essential To Stop Hotcoldwetdry »