My name is Park Guthrie. I am a parent and a 6th-grade teacher in Sonoma County, California. Every student in my school was evacuated due to the Kincade Fire this past week. Some of my students were evacuated twice as the homes of friends where they had taken refuge were later included in an expanded evacuation zone. Thanks only to the heroic efforts of 1,000s of first responders, the cities of Healdsburg, Windsor, and all of western Sonoma county were spared. While none of my students lost homes, all of them suffered significant disruptions and varying degrees of fear and anxiety. 

All of my students have experienced the direct and sometimes terrifying effects of 5 climate-related disasters in just the past 2 years. School has been closed for a total 14 disaster days due to 4 of these disasters: Tubb’s Fire (2017, 5 days), Camp Fire (2018, 2 days), Russian River Flooding (2019, 2 days), Kincade Fire (2019, 5 days). 

Because of repeated exposure to climate-related disasters, my students may have a diminished sense of safety in the world as well as anxiety and pessimism about the future. Given the failure of our national government to seriously address the climate crisis despite 30 years of warnings and reasonable policy options, pessimism, climate-anxiety, and climate-despair may be rational. I’m not OK with this and I hope you are not either. 

My students and all young people deserve more than an environment that generates pessimism, anxiety, and despair! This is where you come in. First responders have protected my students and my community from the immediate devastation of this climate-related disaster. I need your help as a second responder to this most recent climate-disaster and the ongoing climate crisis. Our voices will help flip the context by which my students and young people everywhere face these perennial climate-disasters. 

Individual actions are important, but given the closing window for action, we must also act collectively. Together, we can quickly generate a massive signal that state and national leaders must prioritize bold, fast climate action. We can do it in a non-partisan way because climate-disasters strike families and communities across the political spectrum. 

Up until now, the education sector has been nearly silent about the climate crisis, it’s impact on schools and students, and the need for fast, bold climate action to protect students. (This stands in stark contrast with the medical/public health sector which has been collectively advocating for climate action for years.) Second responders, let’s turn on a firehose of non-partisan advocacy for a safe climate from the tens of thousands of education sector leaders and organizations across the country. 

Fortunately, the non-partisan, youth-adult Schools for Climate Action campaign has laid the groundwork to quickly generate this massive signal from education sector leaders and organizations from across the country. More than 100 education organizations from 14 states have passed non-partisan climate action resolutions, including several state and national organizations. With your help and continued outreach, we are close to achieving a domino effect. There are 75,000 education organizations in the US that have not yet spoken up to help address the climate crisis. With your help, thousands of these organizations could speak up quickly. Not only will this “firehose” of resolutions help move Congress to act, but it can also counteract “hotspots” of despair and pessimism generated by difficult climate realities.