As Toxic Smoke Blankets California, Who Has the Ability to Escape?

There was a time, not so long ago, when one of the challenges faced by environmental activists was making the threat of climate change concrete. How do you convince the public that small changes in the atmosphere can have catastrophic consequences? The threat was real, but it was a threat that needed to be taught, a threat that required explanation, a threat that most people, in their daily lives, couldn’t feel or see.

The Golden Gate Bridge is obscured by smoke and
 haze from wildfires, November 16, 2018, in this
 view from Fort Baker near Sausalito, California. 

In California, those days are over. The Camp Fire in Butte County has become the most destructive wildfire in state history, at one point devouring a football field every second and largely erasing the town of Paradise, population 26,000. By Friday, the death toll from the fire had risen to 71, with more than 1,000 people now missing. (California’s second-most-deadly fire, the Griffith Park Fire in 1993, killed 29 people.) Down south, in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, the Woolsey Fire has consumed nearly 100,000 acres, destroyed more than 600 structures, and killed three people. The impact of the fires has spread well beyond the areas devastated by flames, with the sky turning a sickly grey from Sacramento to Los Angeles. In the past week, school closures caused by the fires resulted in the cancellation of classes for 1.1 million students, a number that amounted to 18 percent of the state’s public-school enrollment, a figure that doesn’t include parochial or private schools. Also closed were a number of colleges, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and San Jose State University.

Read the story by Gabriel Thompson from The Nation - “As Toxic Smoke Blankets California, Who Has the Ability to Escape?”

These Young Climate Justice Advocates Say It's Time for a Revolution

Jamie Margolin can’t remember a time in her life when climate change wasn’t a crisis. The signs were everywhere, from the disappearing sea life in the 16-year-old’s hometown of Seattle to the climate-related disasters in Colombia where her mother’s family lives.

Jamie Margolin of Seattle, Washington, left, is an
environmental activist who co-founded Zero
Hour with Nadia Nazar of Baltimore, Maryland,
right. With a team of volunteers, they are preparing
 for the first Youth Climate March in Washington, D.C.

“When you’re growing up with all this beautiful wildlife around you, it gives you a better idea of what you want to protect,” said Margolin, who will start 11th grade this fall. “And also it’s more painful when, for example, things go wrong, when you see that that habitat is being destroyed.”

Margolin said she wanted to take action when she was younger, but avoided it because the problem was so terrifying. But Donald Trump’s election spurred her to action.

“As young people, we find ourselves in this really awkward place in history where we are going to be alive for the worst effects of climate change, but we’re not old enough to make the decisions right at that tipping point where they need to be made,” she said.  

Read the HuffPost story by Yvette Cabrera -  “These Young Climate Justice Advocates Say It's Time for a Revolution.”