Dear Sander,
Today our nation has joined with more than 175 nations to sign the Paris Climate Agreement at the United Nations. This global agreement was unprecedented and also inadequate; however it is the necessary step toward helping to protect the health and well being of future generations.
Your cousin, Krystal Henagan, is the Texas Field Organizer for “Moms Clean Air Force”, an organization devoted to fighting for our children’s health. Although it is heartening to join with global leaders in enthusiastic conversations for implementing a new way for solutions in the international process, experts tell us that our efforts simply are not working fast enough. Moms Clean Air Force can bring attention to the urgency needed toward a transition to clean air from U.S. power plants, fossil fuels, and all carbon pollutants through enforcement of America’s Clean Power Plan.
On a smaller scale our children should participate with remembering to walk or ride a bicycle instead of riding in a car, recycle bottles, cans, and paper, use less water to shower or brush their teeth, take reusable bags when shopping, and turn off the light switch when leaving a room, or turn your computer or T.V. off.
Our animals should not be forgotten in their necessity for clean air where they must live in. Also the birds in the air and the fish in the sea must be protected from water waste, muck, or debris. Our landfills are growing from too much garbage in sweltering grounds while our population keeps growing by leaps and bounds- meaning more cars, busses, planes, and roads. The more land that we use, the less for the animals that need it for their habitat.
As world leaders met in Paris at the U.N. Climate Summit to implement a historic agreement to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and stop the worst effects of climate change, our President, Barak Obama, stressed that this is “not simply an agreement to roll back the pollution we put into the skies, but an agreement that helps us lift people from poverty without condemning the next generation to a planet that is beyond its capacity to repair.” He spoke at the 21st Session of the Conference of Parties (COP21). The President underscored the importance of this COP21 because “the next generation is watching,” he reminded.
Sander, I often think about the future of our world and wonder if, perhaps, the leaders of those 175 countries have implemented their pledge to stop the worst effects of climate change during the past 50 years. Has clean air been a priority so that now children no longer have to struggle with asthma and other lung diseases?
As the population has grown, there is undoubtedly a need for construction of more housing, taller buildings, factories billowing smoke, then less land for farming. Our hope is that new technology is discovering and exploring new ways in which all humans can protect and care for our planet. These global leaders hopefully saw the need for newer fuels for transportation purposes, less highways and more travel by rail than by car. All carbon pollutants have to be stopped in order to save the Artic glaciers from melting and endangering all the nature that live in our seas.
I’m writing this letter to you in the year 2016 and hope that you are reading it in the year 2050. You will be a young man at this date and I pray that you are having a happy life and that you have contributed each year of your life into helping to make our planet healthy, cleaner, thriving and greener- a better place for all people and animals to live. Your generation and all those to come must continue to care for our planet. Always be diligent to have worldwide processes in place to maintain programs with strict rules on recycling, which keeps our rivers and streams clean when rushing toward the seas.
As I mentioned earlier, your cousin Krystal Henagan is the Texas Field Organizer for “Moms Clean Air Force”. She devotes many hours to educate the people and especially children of the urgency to make the air we breathe to be free of all the pollutants that have affected our environment and how we all must make decisions to heal our world and treat it with respect. Everyone in our family makes it a point to support her efforts in whatever ways we can.
Your grandparents, Gerald and Ann, along with their three children Beth, Jerry, and Aimee (your mom) realized that we had a responsibility to keep our planet healthy. We made many camping trips exploring the Earth, which is our home. We practiced ways to help keep it cleaner, even then, by conserving water around our house, carpooling, recycling to reduce waste in our landfills- always mindful of making our planet safe for all living things. We want to leave a legacy that our time here on earth made a difference.
Lovingly,
Your Marmee
