Letter: Young people are in despair over climate change - Alexandria Echo Press

Letter: Young people are in despair over climate change - Alexandria Echo Press | News, weather and sports from Alexandria, Minnesota

Letter: Young people are in despair over climate change

The following is a letter to the editor submitted to the newspaper by a reader. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Echo Press. To submit a letter, send it to aedenloff@echopress.com or Echo Press, P.O. Box 549, Alexandria, MN 56308.

To the editor:

Some years ago, before COVID hit, I asked a chaplain from a northern Minnesota college what the biggest concern of their student body seemed to be. She said, "climate change" and that many students were "in despair" that so many people refuse to take the problem seriously.

News reports indicate that climate anxiety among people born after 1980 is increasing nationwide. Young adults confide in me that they and their friends seriously discuss whether to build families and bring children into the world anymore.

Here in Minnesota we are temporarily sheltered from the worst, most immediate effects of disastrous global warming and climate change. But that won't last for long. The unheard-of derecho in Houston this month, which struck with the force of a hurricane or tornado, along with the early onset of crippling heat waves are a wake-up call to all of us that we must grapple with climate change now, instead of waiting for a disaster to strike us here.

Addressing climate change is much more than sustainable energy, though that is a big part of it. It is also about hardening our buildings and our critical infrastructure. It's about taking steps to protect our communities against torrential rains and increasingly violent, erratic weather. It's about building community, so that we can help protect one another when disaster strikes by laying the groundwork now for emergency citizen mobilization and life-saving communications.

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In short – it is about being good neighbors to one another. Which starts with not burying our heads in the sand about climate change. Our young people who are in distress deserve no less from all of us.

Rev. John Riggle

Alexandria, MN

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