Daily Dot: Hope for Our Children

“My truest hope for my kids, probably, is that no matter what happens in the future, they don’t face it alone.”

– Kaitlin Teer, author of the book of essays Little Apocalypses

Dear Reader,

Somewhere around 2006, when I was a freelance writer and the mom of three young kids, I pitched a story to an editor I knew at a national parenting magazine. My pitch was “how to talk to your kids about climate change without terrifying them.” Many of my stories in those days focused on finding answers to questions I had in my own life. But that one was a doozy. I was deep into climate activism and working on a book about the environment. I read the reports, I spoke with scientists. I knew that my children were staring down a crisis that was only going to get worse, and I wanted them armed with both age-appropriate understanding and inspiration to care for our Earth. And, of course, I didn’t want them paralyzed by the magnitude of the problem. (Climate change is called a “hyper-object” because it’s so large as to seem insurmountable. It’s not. We have the solutions.)

In the two decades since, my children have grown. So has our climate crisis. Despite the promise of the Paris Agreement, the world is on track to warm more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures within the next decade. 

And while Dot remains committed to climate action — including voting for political leaders who recognize and are ready to respond to climate change, working to share what we know with others, and taking action in my own life to reduce my personal impact, there is a growing recognition that community is also key. Put another way: We must take care of each other as we navigate a changing planet. Building a caring community protects our most vulnerable, helps us take bigger action, and ensures that, as Katilin Teer notes, nobody faces the future alone. 

Caringly,

Dot

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