CLIMATE RESEARCH

I grew up on a large family farm in rural North Dakota, and I remember doing rain dances as a very young child during years of drought because I was so worried that the crops wouldn’t grow. That memory of dancing barefoot on the parched, cracked earth, feeling scared for our family’s future but hopeful at the sight of clouds on the horizon, left an indelible mark on me. Now, years later, my experience growing up on the farm continues to resonate with me, and it has taught me lessons that I want to channel into fighting climate change.

 

The first lesson is that young people are intimately connected to the environment, and passionate about preserving it. Even very young children are aware of the climate problems we're facing, and we owe it to them to fight for solutions with everything we've got.

 

The second lesson is that fear can feel overwhelming sometimes, but hope and positivity are essential to overcoming that fear and instigating change. Even though all I could do as a child was dance, it felt better to be doing something, and to be hopeful that the rain would fall. As adults, our calls to action are much more concrete; we need to tackle this problem swiftly and directly from all angles, and a belief that we can make a difference is vital to achieving that.

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The third lesson was one I didn’t realize until much later in life, which is that people on all sides of the political spectrum love and care about the earth. It seems so obvious, but sometimes in our current politically charged state, it gets lost in the melee. People from all backgrounds share the common goals of preserving this amazing planet and providing a better life for the next generation. We need to find ways of appealing to that personal connection with nature in order to create a broad coalition to protect this amazing planet and its inhabitants.