ELDERS CLIMATE ACTION DAY IS COMING! SPRING 2017

 

In September 2015, we had our first ever Grandparents Climate Action Day in Washington, D.C.  More than 140 elders came together from around the country to learn, share, and ask our representatives and senators to do right by our children, grandchildren and all life.  It was a wonderful awakening for many of us who had been on the sidelines of climate change for too long.  We found a community of like-minded elders who are interested in building a real movement. 

We are doing it again!  Our Elders Climate Action D ay 2017 will be held in Washington D.C. next spring.  While we are in the early planning stage,

we invite your input on the kinds of in spiring and relevant programming that will strengthen elders to be a positive force for future generations on climate change.  Please send your thoughts and suggestions to  lesliew@eldersclimateaction.org.

I received an email last winter from Grady McGonagill, inviting me to join him and others for a meeting of ECA. My friend, Rajesh Kasturirangan, had talked to me about it earlier. I was out of the country at that time, so I wrote back to Grady, that once I am back, I would love to join them.

I have been part of our South Asia Center for many years and for last couple of years, we decided to raise awareness about climate justice amongst the South Asian community in the Greater Boston area, so the mission of ECA was in sync with what we have been doing for some time. South Asia is one of the most adversely affected regions of the world due to climate change. For instance, it has been reported that 80% of the ground water has been depleted there.

So I joined ECA in the spring and attended my first meeting at Judy Weiss's house in Brookline. I found everyone very friendly, pleasant and deeply concerned about the state of affairs and what world we were going to leave behind for our children and grandchildren. I felt a serious commitment by the group to climate justice.

During the last few months, ECA has joined several other groups in many initiatives regarding the Energy Bill in the Mass. Legislature and protests to Stop the Pipeline, as well as other activities. ECA members have been very active in lobbying with their representatives and senators about this bill.

For my wife and me, who also came to couple of meetings, ECA is a very healthy space for climate justice and can only grow. My wife pointed out that we need more women in the group, as at present we have mostly men. 

Born in 1942, like most of my age-peers I grew up unaware of environmental problems. That began to change in the '50s when beaches near Cleveland were being closed due to raw sewage entering Lake Eire.  Awareness grew on moving to Los Angeles in 1964. While Clevelanders could opt to swim in a pool, Angelinos had no alternative to breathing polluted air. Pursuing a graduate degree in chemistry, I was confident that technical solutions to these local environmental problems would be found without further action on my part. And they have been and now we have Global environmental problems!

 

Fast forward to 1985. I was working at the National Academy of Sciences that has a Congressional mandate to study big problems. Just by overhearing elevator conversations, I become aware of a whole new class of problems:  those caused by simple gas molecules released into the planet's atmosphere by human activity. The easy one, Ozone layer depletion by CFCs, was successfully addressed in just two years by the Montreal Protocol. But the hard one, climate change driven by carbon dioxide loading, is still very much with us.  

 

One doesn't have to be a scientist to appreciate that climate change will not be solved by a few geniuses off in a think-tank somewhere. Each of us needs to find a way to grapple with global warming. That is why I've joined Elders Climate Action. Together we can support each other in the hard work of restoring our precious planet.

 

Many thanks and eternal gratitude to Robin Gobetz 

who has volunteered her 

time to design the fabulous newsletter you receive 

each month.

THANK YOU ROBIN, WE WILL MISS YOU!!!

Climate Parents, a national initiative to mobilize parents, grandparents and families for climate solutions, has integrated into the national Sierra Club. We will maintain our Climate Parents name and logo, as well as our Facebook page and website .  

What inspired our integration into the Sierra Club with its 2.4 million members were our shared values and vision and opportunities to work on campaigns with big outcomes -- like retiring America's coal fleet and replacing it with kid-safe, climate-safe energy. We will also benefit from the opportunity to work closely with Sierra Club's 64 chapters and grassroots groups in all 50 states.

 

We are more enthused than ever about working together for the healthy climate and clean energy future our kids and grandkids deserve!

Subscribe to the new Elders Climate Action YouTube feed here and watch a short inspirational video. (The video was created by ECA volunteer Robin Gobetz.)