My first detention (Kaia A. - Oct '19)

Published in the Stevens County Times

I am in 8th grade and today I served my first detention, and I’m proud: proud that I was brave enough to leave school to go to this event that was important to me. The event in particular was the climate strike. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have parents who completely supported me in going.

Global warming is important to me because I’m going to see the consequences with my own eyes. I’ll be around in 50-60 years, and people aren’t taking this seriously enough. Greenhouse gasses are skyrocketing, the ozone layer is thinning, and plastic is filling our oceans. We need to adapt. We can’t keep brushing this off.

Greta Thunberg is 16 years old and is empowering people everywhere. She spoke at the UN climate strike; this is part of her speech, “The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.” She goes on to say that 50% is not enough. She releases figures that show a slim chance of 67%: “To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on January 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.”

The climate strike was important to me, it showed me that even in this small community there are voices who are yelling for change. Change is coming, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.

Kaia Anderson

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