I have been thinking a lot about Greta Thunberg, the Climate Strike, Climate Change, and frankly… adults. This week we saw what was potentially one of the largest demonstrations organized by kids across the world. This #GlobalClimateStrike movement was started by one girl, Greta Thunberg, who sat alone in Sweden on strike from school demanding there be climate action for their future. Since then, other kids across the world have joined her, taking school off to protest the inaction of adults around the globe. On Friday, an estimated 4 million joined Greta all around the world from Antartica to Uganda. I took part in the one in Denver, Colorado and there were an estimated 7,500 people there – a huge number for a city not typically known for its demonstrations!

Then, following this massive demonstration of anger from kids around the world, Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations in the U.S. with a powerfully angry and moving speech about how adults in positions of power have robbed her and her generation of their future and how she is sick of being seen as an inspiration by people who do nothing to help her. I recommend you either watch or read the whole entire thing as it is very short and very well done. Greta is 16, a child, but the same age as many powerful girls before her (like Malala and Anne Frank) when they made change. Greta proves that age is just a number… especially when it comes to having a voice on one of the largest worldwide issues our planet has ever had to deal with.

If there is confusion as to why the kids left school and marched, let me lay it out: we marched to demand climate action from our world leaders because climate change is the greatest existential threat to our world and people (we are in the beginnings of mass extinction).

This all sounds just as terrifying as it is. Especially when you are young and it feels you might not have a future, because of adult inaction.

“Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

Greta Thunberg at the U.N. on 9.23.2019

Every day there are newspaper articles calling out the fear young people have at the future of our planet (millenials not having kids, gen z worried about dying of climate change and not old age… etc). I assume that most of the people subscribed to my blog and my newsletter are are adults. I am an adult. You are most likely an adult. Some of the articles other adults write say that “the kids will save us”… but here is the thing, they can’t. They are using their power to strike and we have to use our grown-up powers to vote.

Climate change is real.

Climate change is here.

It is up to us adults to use our vote to make sure we are leaving this world better for those who are entering it. I write books about endangered species and adults often say they are distressing… but right now an estimated 200 species of plants and animals are going extinct every day due, which is 1,000 times the normal rate.

If you read my If Animals Disappeared books and think “this is so sad, I can’t have a kid read this”… remember that we are leaving the kids to deal with this. Very literally, the kids are marching out on the streets trying to deal with this. We owe it to them to listen. We owe it to them to vote for people who believe in climate change, who will take swift climate action, and will put the future of the next generation of kids first.

Thank you for listening,

This post was originally sent to my newsletter but is now being posted as a blog post.

climate change if animals disappeared if bees disappeared if polar bears disappeared if sharks disappeared mass extinction