Grace Jones says the urgency of climate change is motivating her generation to political activism.
We hear the words climate change all the time. On the news, during debates. For many it's faded into the background, softened into something too far in the future to have any effect. But if we're looking at the facts, that's not the truth. We see the effects of climate change every day.
As the climate becomes hotter, the snowpack decreases. Growing up in California, this relationship between climate and water has always been clear to me. The state has been in drought more than half my life.
And it's not just rain that's affected by climate change. According to the EPA, rising temperatures are increasing the number and severity of wildfires. In this year alone, more than 4 million acres burned in California. We’ve all walked outside and seen an ash gray sky, the sun a pale orange circle just visible through the haze. This stunned me at first because in my little coastal town the air always seemed clean and filled with the scents of redwood forests in our hills and the Pacific Ocean at our shore.
I'm scared of what the world will be like when I'm an adult. And if I'm thinking that now, what about when the next generation are adults?