Dear Gen-X,
As a member of Gen-Z I have looked up to you my entire life. You are my family, my parents, my uncles, and my aunts. As much as I appreciate your guidance throughout my life, your generation has blatantly failed to recognize our Climate Crisis. All you’ve been saying recently is that “it’s up to your generation to fix it” or “good luck, it’s going to be rough for you guys,” and frankly, I am sick and tired of hearing those words.
I am a fifteen-year-old girl in high school. The youngest of my generation is twelve years old, and the oldest is twenty-five. That is still in middle school and freshly out of college. It is baffling to think that a generation that hasn’t completely graduated from the eighth grade will be the one to fix the world’s most existential emergency. On the other hand, you are adults between the ages of forty-five and sixty, most of whom are still working. I find it hard to believe that you are “too old” to care about the well-being and future of our planet.
In the United States, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. These emissions come from people’s unsustainable habits and don’t get me wrong it is something all generations could work on, but I would like a little more push from Gen-X. Author of the Generation X Report John D. Miller states, “Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don’t spend much time worrying about it.” If you happen to be one of the people who do not spend much time worrying about climate change, I think you should know that the world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history, threatening all life forms on earth. If you guys could acknowledge what the climate crisis is and how it’s affecting our planet, maybe, just maybe we can see positive change for our future generations.
There are many simple yet powerful ways that each one of you could combat climate change, as 40 percent of global carbon emissions come from powering your homes. There are several easy fixes like turning off the lights when you do not need them. Lights account for about 10% of residential electricity use and if you simply turned them off, you could help decrease carbon emissions. Another great way of doing your part is taking public transportation. You could save so much carbon from being released into the atmosphere when taking a bus instead of your car! Even watching the intensity of your thermostat is helpful because they require heaps of energy, and therefore heaps of carbon emissions. I hope you can see that there are so many little things you can do to help us out. These small changes may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, they are.
You need to help us in saving our future. You need to change your habits and simply start to care. Even if that just means turning off lights when you leave a room. I am writing to you not to shame or to humiliate, but to save the lives of you, your children, and generations to come. I am a fifteen year old girl in high school and I am not asking, but begging for your help.
From,
Gianna, A Gen-Z
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://news.umich.edu/generation-x-is-surprisingly-unconcerned-about-climate-change/
