 So, I'm Sarah Latte, and I'm the director here at the Sumer Activity Center. We're delighted to have you all, as well as all of you. This is wonderful. I just wanted to give a little plug to a couple of things going on here in addition to these wonderful lectures happening. You might know that we are in the midst of March, and it is March for Meals Month, which is the month in which we are celebrating the incredible resource that we have here at the Sumer Activity Center, which is called East Sur Meals, with our Meals on Meals program and our curbside meals that go out to all older adults that have meat or food, and we have locally sourced delicious food we offer. I wanted to mention that we've created a really beautiful sort of feature film kind of thing, and if you're interested in supporting our program, it's just a $25 donation, and we'll get the online link if you can watch it at any time. We're sort of premiering it on Friday, but after that you can watch it whenever you want, and I think it's really good, so you should sign up for it. We also have our spring classes getting started in just a couple of weeks, and there's still time to register. There's over 30 different programs and classes being offered, wellness classes, arts classes, culture classes, movement classes, all kinds of amazing things, so check that out. And just finally, in case anybody happens to know a communications and development expert, we are in need of somebody, so if you happen to know of anyone, send them my way. Thank you so much for the afternoon. I'm so glad you're here. It almost didn't happen, so it wasn't in porch form in Montpelier, so yay for you coming. The reason that almost didn't happen is Tom Sable, who is the teacher advisor for this group? Michelle? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can take it. No, no, I'm just making fun of myself. He's a teacher advisor, and the sustainability coordinated for the Montpelier was this good? Yes. Montpelier Rocksbury School Area had a winner of many education awards. He tested positive for COVID. This is the new normal, right? So it's almost metaphorical that he couldn't come, but the young people came. So before we start, I just want to remind you next week is Reeve Lindbergh coming to talk about memoirs ready for all and memoirs of others. The refugee program is up on Orca, and the other ones will follow. Is it, is there anything else? Am I supposed to remember? No. So I'm really excited to have two generations here to talk about the support topic. This is Gabe, Ben, Noah, Willow, and Mira. And they're members of the Earth Group at Montpelier High School. They're also members of the Vermont Youth Lobby, who have been hiding summits for how long? Long time? How long has the Vermont Youth Lobby been? They may be long, and they meet annually to share ideas, use, and step action. They're also part of the youth climate or commerce. And they meet regularly with our legislators and tell them what's important. So, so today, so I'm reassuring to see them. They're eager to hear their perspective on how our generation's decisions have affected them in their future. So, I also should tell you that I kind of set them up to say that we would be interested in hearing what we could do to support them. So if you're not interested, you can close your ears for me. Okay, so without further ado, are you starting? Yeah, thank you. So, move on to the next slide. Okay, so, yeah, I think we would start off with kind of just a brief overview of how we got here from our perspective. Just some points of data shows that our current change in climate is due to an increase in atmospheric, you know, gases, notably CO2. We know this because other factors that would affect the warming of the planet are not changing as much as the amount of CO2, which we know we are pumping into our atmosphere at a rate that we can't reabsorb. It takes millions of years for CO2 to come into, to go into the ground, become fossil fuels. And we're mining it in large quantities and burning it up within seconds back into our atmosphere. We've been doing it for the past few hundred years since the Industrial Revolution. And here are just some, like, data points, but that's basically how we got to this place that we are now. Okay, if you want to take your mask off while you're talking, it might be easier to hear. Yeah. I don't know if you guys heard. But yeah, I think, yeah, so this is how we got to this crisis. And I had no idea what it can kind of go over, what the crisis looks like right now, and what this kind of change in the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere means for a planet. Yeah, so let's stand over here. So basically what the problem is currently and in our current situation is that global warming has led to climate change, as most of you may know. Climate change is causing a lot of adverse events that really affect a lot of the parts of the world, like extreme and intermittent weather events, increased flooding and increased droughts, disruption in food production, rising sea levels are contaminating, fresh water supplies, flooding coastal cities, partly due in part, actually mostly due to melting of sea ice and glaciers in our poles, and then also the loss of biodiversity on land and in the sea. So every year the inter-governmental panel on climate change produces a report and that report contains numbers and actually degrees that relate to indicate that if warming exceeds that certain degree point, we will hit a climactic tipping point. And each year that number is low-framed because they're finding out new data and information. And we're already at one Celsius above, and so basically as you can see 1.5 Celsius is the tipping point, so we're around like 0.5 Celsius away from that. And this is expected to occur in the early 2030s. And did you have a question? Yeah, so we're not just expanding on that kind of a red view of what is currently happening and where we're at right now and the kind of time-sensitive nature of this crisis, seeing as in the early 2030s, if we've maintained course in the climate warms by another 0.5 degrees Celsius, everyone here will still be in our late 20s, which is pretty young, and we'll be there to see this tipping point in climate where we can't go back and where it's irreparably damaged. And that's pretty scary to think about. And so some kind of things, when addressing the problem, it's not only the physical problem going on with climate change that we're seeing in the world, but also the problem of not doing anything about that problem, I guess it's a separate thing that we're still trying to battle. Do you have a question? Okay, sorry. So, yeah, this is called the Science Action Gap where science has overwhelmingly said that the temperature is consistently warming. This is what happens when the temperature gets above this degrees. This is a problem that we can scientifically prove. Yet, in getting in our ways, is the way that we've set up our economy where constant growth is something that we measure success by, which is not necessarily good when we're talking about the amount of oil we've already drilled and the amount of oil we've taken is more than we can afford to burn into our atmosphere. So, even though it's not economically sound for us to divest in oil and it's not economically sound to not continue to burn that oil that we've already taken out, it's going to be even more disastrous to our world. So I think you just have to think about in the psychology around what the reality of it is versus what the risk people assume it is. And it's hard to kind of face how broad and awful these conditions are, but it's something that we have to do. We have to get past this kind of psychological boundary around the way that we view the Earth and the way that we view the way we can function as a society. Because if we continue to function like this, the climate is not going to be able to survive much longer. I have a question now. Oh, yeah. I'm sitting here. Vibranium space is what you're saying is so important. And I wanted to mention the externality word. I didn't take an economics course until after I had finished the biology program. And I said, what's an externality? Water, air, peace, quiet, space. Those considered not part of the economy. That was like an externality. I was shocked because those things were not given a value. And that's still the problem. Yeah, no, I think in the same sense that if we're measuring our success as even like a country by GDP and our success as an economy by GDP, like this kind of wetlands is a success. If we're going to build a mall or we're going to build something that's going to make us money. Even though we're losing this natural defense and we're losing this natural source of balance, it's still good for our economy. And so it's seen as popular. And that's a hard thing to kind of change both psychologically and just in practice. So, yeah, that's what we mean by externality. You might have something outside of our economy. Why do we care? We're going to be on this planet for a long time. And we, as like the youth of the world, are going to be greatly impacted by climate change as it worsens. And as we've grown up, we've seen this problem getting worse and worse. We're seeing natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, floods all over the world. And that's just going to keep getting worse as long as people don't take action. And another thing is as resources become more and more scarce, prices for things like water and fresh food are going to rise rapidly. And yeah. So what we've been doing about it as youths, since we're in the capital, we've been holding rallies around the state and the state house. And press conferences outside the state house, getting in contact with state legislators for climate legislation reasons, and making small changes around our school. We held a clothing swap, which people brought in clothes, and then others took them for free. So you wouldn't, you know, lessen your clothing waste. And local food production on campus, like we have a garden that we grow all of our vegetables. We compost in the cycle, and we lobby on the school board for net zero policy, which is being pushed right now. Some ways we can go about it together to help. So one thing you can do is you can vote in representatives that have pro-climate agendas. Holding those representatives accountable is also vital. You can send them letters. You can email them, just letting them know that you still care and you want to press them on what you want passed as bills. You can divest savings from fossil fuel companies and invest in sustainable companies in renewable energy sources, like Suncommon, V-Predator, a couple places. You can also simply just educate yourself and peers, doing like simple research and talk about it with your friends and families. Are a bunch of ways you can definitely help us. Can you explain to the local things that you've been doing about it, the growing, the food, the recycling? Have you assessed your success in that? And is that scalable? Can you spread that around the state? You know, in terms of actually doing something that makes some difference, how are we small? I mean, we've been able to maintain our composting program at the school for a number of years, way longer than I've been there. I think the small, sustainable acts aren't something that is going to individually write this giant ship. But it is an example of how if we practice more sustainable ways of doing things, then slowly things can get better. So I don't think there's a way to measure the exact amount of carbon that we've taken out of our atmosphere by swapping clothes at school. But we still know that it does something and it's at least symbology a good practice to do. I think maybe you mentioned this when you first started, but how are your communication lines with other groups like you and other bicycles? So there's a thing called the Vermont Youth Lobby that I've been involved with for the past few years and that essentially is that. It's a larger organization that plans more broader legislative action where we have members from schools around the state who have their own school-wide initiatives. There's also something that went through the Vermont Energy Education program that is called the Youth Climate Leaders Academy. And that also brings together school groups from around the state to come together and share ideas and collaborate. That's where a lot of these programs came from. We've done things like trying to plant more trees around our school and small things like that all come from ideas just like sharing with other people our age. And we've seen a lot of really great connections between them. I wanted to ask about how is your net zero lobbying to the school board going? I'd like a report on that and I'd also like you to comment about a program on NOVA that I saw where this methane gas is coming up out of the earth. And it's something that has not much to do with whether anybody's doing anything or not. Do you know what I'm referring to up in the Arctic? Yeah, there's permafrost melting, but the permafrost melting and a lot of the other melting comes from feedback loops started by warming temperatures in the first place. So by decreasing temperatures altogether and decreasing the amount of carbon or atmosphere, we're decreasing the amount of melting, which in turn decreases the amount of methane in our atmosphere. There's one over in Russia where it just came up with a boom like it was coming from Middle Earth and it's increasing the methane ring around. And I just wondered if you have any comment on that. Yeah, I think methane is an issue and it's a stronger greenhouse gas in its ability to trap heat in our atmosphere. There's still a large, significant, less amount of methane in our atmosphere already and on the larger scale of amount of methane being released into our atmosphere versus amount of carbon in our atmosphere, carbon is significantly the gas that is being pumped in more and the one that we can change. The Earth naturally produces these greenhouse gases and has systems to build them back into our soil. What we're doing by burning more carbon is offsetting this balance. So yeah, there are going to be natural causes to the heating of our atmosphere, but we need to focus on things that we can't control. But yeah, that's definitely still a problem. I've been very impressed with the impact that youth have on the legislature more than you may know and you're showing up there, it's wonderful. I wondered if you had any direct contact with direct knowledge of any bills that were now being introduced about replacing dirty sources of electricity with cleaner sources of electricity. Because I don't think we have much control over it right now. And we're going to have a lot more electric cars coming along soon than we need for electricity. And I don't know if any of your legislative contacts are working on that particular issue of clean electric energy. And if not, can you bring them up first? So on the state level, thankfully Vermont does get a lot of its electricity from renewable sources. It is controversial. A lot of our electricity comes from Hydro-Quebec, which has its own problems. And I do believe that there are bills that put money into expanding solar programs. But that's definitely something that we need to continue to do. Thankfully, Vermont doesn't, I don't think, get a huge amount of our electricity from the burning of fossil fuels, which is good. But it's still environmentally controversial, the use of Hydro. But that's definitely something that we'll continue to push for. Yeah, and so there is something called the Global Warming Solutions Act. That was passed that essentially holds businesses in Vermont accountable to reduce their individual emissions and the state's emissions by a certain amount, by, I believe, 2050. And if we don't reach that goal, we can actually sue the government when I understand that there are going to be actual repercussions to not meeting specific goals. And a lot of those goals are around the amount of fuel or amount of energy to be taken through non-renewable sources. So altogether, there's a large incentive around the state to switch to renewable. And I believe the other big thing around that is just reducing our energy use in general. Vermont doesn't have a big production sector, but we do use a lot of energy heating and transportation. So a big look is how to reduce as much transportation as possible altogether. So we don't even have to think about where we're getting the fuel and reducing the amount of electricity we use on heat already because a lot of things aren't weatherized. There are other solutions that are more immediate and, I believe, easier patches on our system, at least in the state. Yeah. I think what you're doing and what Vermont is doing is great. Do you have any idea what's going on in the rest of the state? Are there other youth groups doing what you're doing in a similar way? Yeah, like I said, so the youth lobby does have members from Southern Vermont and Chippin County and all around. And even if members that are not super active, we do have a listserv and email list and connection to schools from virtually every part of the state. And also, like I said, the Youth Climate Leaders Academy, run by Veeve, is also inclusive of schools from all around the state, not just Central Vermont, ensuring these ideas and mobilizing. And whenever we have rallies, I know at least a few students from places like Brownboro coming all the way up, Virginia, it's like all around the state. So we do definitely have this reach. So working on growing that more. What about the rest of the country, though? Around the country, though. Do you want me to take care of that? Yeah, I mean, there's larger sectors of national organizations that we've worked with before. But that's, I think, a larger issue. And it's harder, essentially, as students to tackle nationwide problems. There are different conventions of youth at national conventions that we've talked about before going to, which is between ourselves. But yeah, I think the most effective organizing, especially here, especially through student organizing, is statewide and local. I think that's where we have the most impact and that's where our voice is heard the most. Especially in a small state of Vermont, it's hard to kind of get footing on a national level. Yeah. I understand rallies and talking to the legislators. Do you feel as though they're listening to you? And do you feel as though it's advancing the cause that they are really trying to do something? I think it honestly depends on the legislators. But I don't think you can ever contact your legislator because something is better than nothing. But yeah. There also have been laws, like I said, mentioned the Global Warring Solutions Act was passed two years ago. And that was after a lot of huge surge in youth activism. Not related to climate change, but similarly there was a huge swath of gun control bills passed because of youth activism. So especially in a state like Vermont, direct relationships to your legislators and the people in power make a pretty big impact. Just because I do believe that there are bills that are now law that would not be so without them just seeing that young people care or want it to happen. What does that have to do with the rest of your high school? I'm wondering if, I mean obviously not everybody is an activist, but do you think that most of your fellow students agree with you in terms of how important it is to tackle the climate crisis? Or do you think there's a lot of passivity? I would say yes. I think everyone is concerned about it and I would guess that everyone is mostly educated even if they're not like speaking up as much as Earth Group is or youth lobby. Even just by like little things like composting their lunch and recycling things, they are doing their part even if they aren't speaking out as much about it. But I think everyone around our age pretty much has the same fear of this like existential crisis that they can't really control. And I think, I would say they're really scared. Yeah? It's got to say good, but it isn't what I mean. Good that they're aware of how much we think they're working for you. Yeah, and like they're kind of similar presentation. I think people all grown up with seeing these numbers of like, you know, the year 2030 to us is not. We're getting us to be pretty young. It's a pretty kind of strike that's coming up and that's the reality that most of our adult life will have to live under if we don't do anything. I mean, Andrew Shapiro, I work for the Vermont Energy Education Program. And in answer to the question about legislation, the Senate just passed the, or was the House just passed the Clean Heat Standard, which is really important bill to get homes and businesses off of fossil fuels and onto electrified solutions. And so that's in process right now. So that's something you can support. I'm also asking the Senate to put up some money so that we can get to every school in the state with our programs to work with kids around climate change and the climate change action plans that are happening. So that's something else you can support. I'm curious that are we just interrupting and you have like, you know, 12 more slides and that we should be hearing more. No, we have one more that's just discussion questions we were planning on if we had time breaking up into smaller discussion groups and having more dialogue. So if there are no further questions, we can move on to that, but we're happy to take more questions. So I have a question. I just want to keep interrupting if we have to finish. I am, I was interested in the psychological aspects and I have some articles I'm going to leave with you guys that, but one of them talks about climate trauma as a sort of a new kind of overarching trauma over the whole earth, you know, for all of humanity. It's a pretty interesting article and it kind of stands on its head in terms of, you know, what the experience is. The other one, the other article just talks about this dissociative experience that we all know is we're in trouble and that we're all going to go get in our gasoline powered cars and go home and we're going to put the clothes in the dryer and we're going to, you know, fly out of Mexico for vacation and we're going to do all these things. And so that, so this particular article just talks about how this dissociation, that the remedy for it is something that was actually happening a lot like 20, 30 years ago, or 40 years ago even, which is to start reconnecting people and their lifestyles with the environment, you know, really like connecting those dots very directly all the time so that people are just, you know, actually doing stuff instead of sort of, because that must be some of the distress that you guys see is there's like, you know, the lip service that we pay to, you know, wringing our hands and then we're all just, we haven't changed anything, right, or not much. I mean, the change is too slow. I don't know if that was a question. No, but I think I agree. I think that a lot of that is true. A lot of people say things and don't only act on it, but I think a lot of it is a personal decision. I mean, personally, I don't use the gyro, I hate gyro enclose, I have an electric car, I'm a vegetarian, and so my carbon footprint is very, very, very low. So a lot of it is a lot of personal decisions on how we ourselves could do better. Yeah, and just what this talks about is the actual psychology of dissociation. You have a question? Yeah, I have a question. Is there any effort to change the curriculum of the high school? Well, we actually, we already have, I think like two or three classes focusing on climate change. And we have a pretty big curriculum around it already. Yeah, we have a class on, I think... Climate crisis. Yeah, there's a class called the climate crisis and a class called environmental applications. And they both kind of focus on climate crisis, yeah. Does the climate council or what kind of council have youth representatives on it? Yeah, that's going to be the answer. Yeah, there is a member of Youth Lobby is on the council. And that shows how kind of close the state is in that, and also how close the network of students who care about this stuff is, yeah, direct involvement in some of the solutions being made, which I think is a really great step forward. Do you have a question? I couldn't say statewide, but I would say that this picture is from the Vermont Youth Climate Congress that we held a few years ago. And in that we wrote a declaration expressing what exactly we want to see from our legislators in the coming years. And a big part of that was agreed upon by young people that we need... I don't believe that there's any bill right now that mandates climate education in our schools, but that was definitely a shared concern around, you know, while I'm pretty much very progressive and has these classes, I'm sure there are a lot of schools around the state that don't. But that's definitely something that needs to be changed. That's where I promised you the last one. What's your next action? Right now we're planning to rally for the planet on April 29th, which will have young people from around the state come together. We've been helping pull together a year, except for the past two years because of COVID. And it's more of an event to kind of, at the end of the legislative session, to recap what has happened, what we'd like to see in the next legislative session, and then more just community network building and strengthening that kind of connection between schools and between young people who care, as well as inspiring and educating people. An important part of this kind of action is also a green jobs fair where we're hopefully going to expose a lot of young people to specific opportunities where they can get involved in either as a career in sustainable work around like installing solar and things like that, or as like summer internships. So those are exciting new things that are coming up in the next month or so. So I feel inspired by what you're doing, and I also feel like you're presenting it as your problem. And I think the question for us, since we helped create the problem, you're saying we need bold action. So are we willing to really support bold action by our legislators, and are we willing to take bold action ourselves, even if inconvenient, so inconvenient. So I have a response for you, Michelle. Yes. There's a group called Third Act that Bill McKibben started, and it's to engage the elders of our country in climate change work. And you can Google Third Act. They've got three corporate banks that they're trying to ban right now from fossil fuel investment. They want people to sign a pledge saying that if these banks, by the end of the year, don't divest, that all of us that have accounts of them will close them. There are other steps too. So if you go to Third Act, it's specifically for people 60 and older to tap and get involved in climate change work. Thank you. What do you all talk about now in terms of population? I just turned a class at the high school that is one of the classes that have been mentioned. It's actually, I realize the full name is environmental applications, human population consumption. And it looks more at the scientific effect of, are you talking about like the growing population in the state or in the world? World, I mean, as part of the problem or not? I mean, I think it personally is tricky for me to say and to point to growing population as a problem because I think that gets into ideas around like how many children should, I don't know, I think controlling populations can get tricky when we're talking about how to do so. And I don't think population control is the answer because we do produce enough food to feed everyone and we do have a lot of land. And there are countries in like Italy whose populations are decreasing or countries around Europe and in the West where populations are not growing that fast. So when you took a broader scope at the problem, it's not that necessarily there are too many people being born or their population has grown too much. It's just we have a system that is not sustainable in protecting and feeding everyone. So that's kind of my specific take. I don't know of anyone else. Do you want some help setting up the discussion groups or do you want to continue with this open discussion? I think whatever works best, I don't know. Would you rather? Yeah, maybe because there's not a full room. We could just address them. Yeah, we can just address the questions. We do have these discussion prompts that we can get out to or you can bring up something else but it's good to have this dialogue and definitely open up more to I'll have to say about this and anything you're interested in. But yeah, these are things to do with anything. In answer to that first question which I love I just want to note the name, I can't remember a philosopher who said that a man's moral neighborhood is as far as he can ride a horse in a day. So it's very hard for us morally to feel this obligation of being as humans. Maybe grandparents can do it more, better. I think we're also thinking about philosophies and ways of thinking of things that are cultures around the world that have those ideas of the importance of thinking of seven generations out of you. I know it's been a big tenet of the modern environmental movement I think is a good philosophy to keep in mind. I get so upset when I see all these ads for like cruises and flying here and flying there and building these new places and high levels and maybe in the middle of the country to make everything so beautiful for everybody to spend, spend, spend and use more fuel. And I don't know if that's a question or not it's just something that's always on my mind that we can do things here. You're doing great here in Central America and your mind is doing great but I don't know about the other states people ask if there are other groups not that you're associated with but are there other groups that are aware of who are being active in at least this country? I personally only know of one but my aunt just started her entire daughter's school system with a composting company I guess like every single school in this town called Scarsdale in New York and Westchester. Her name is Michelle Sterling she just started composting in the elementary school the middle school and the high school which has like thousands of kids in it so she's just started the whole thing with her and a couple other coworkers which is just one thing that I know of which is just a minor impact but I think it shows like some little things that we could do. And I would say internationally and nationally there are organizations like Extinction Rebellion and I know of, I think it's called Just Stop Oil that recently did a demonstration where they went out on an English soccer field and strapped themselves to the goalpost and tried to get to the goal. So there are global networks of people getting involved and those are just a few organizations at the top of my head. I've been focusing, all of us have been focusing on the local level but there are national organizations and lobbying firms set up to defend the climate maybe not enough but there are some. In the back. You have this question about education at lower grade levels. Our Remotten Energy Education Program offers programs K through 12 on energy and climate change and of course you can't confront a second grader with climate change and all the worry associated but you can build the skills that they need to begin to understand this issue well whether you're old enough to be able to do it. So you know that's available to all schools in the state regardless of the ability to pay. So that's something you can do is get this education into your local school. You know in the Montpelier School apparently a high school here has just been doing fabulously well. And you know people say we're doing really well in Vermont. Our transportation energy is higher than just about any other state cap. So we do well in many ways like these kids are doing but we got a long way to go. So yeah I would invite anyone to just look over some of the discussion about how we're already set up. Do you have any response to that? And we'll still definitely take you back. I'm talking too much but the David Sussundi Foundation has a lot of information about climate change and support and actions and 10 top tips. But they also challenge us to have three conversations with others, our peers about climate change. And these are great questions. But they also have also a program to teach us how to do it at the Thanksgiving table without losing our families. So what is the name of the organization? David Sussundi Foundation. So they have this little thing that helps us be less divisive when we're asking questions. But these would be great questions to ask our neighbors, right? Do you have any response to any of these questions? Just to go back to what you were saying about talking to people. I think it's really important that you don't just say no but when you're talking to somebody who might have a different opinion to you on a subject, you kind of say yes and if you look at it this way maybe there's another path you can take with this or with this. And I think that's really important to keep in the back of your head when you're talking to somebody who might have a difference of opinion on the change in climate and global warming. Yeah, and if you want to dive into the discussion prompts and if anyone doesn't have any further questions. Oh yeah. I just have one thing. I've been thinking about with the last couple of years of COVID how we're not traveling as much and there's a lot of Zoom and the Zoom still stays you know you're not there together with some people but it is a way in which a lot of people have started to think about what their office space and what their work can look like and where they can be and so I would say that in terms of what's happened with COVID to take that and think about that with climate change but to also think about the ways in which we can then be closer together with those of us more in our neighborhoods and I know that we have where we are a neighborhood dinner that used to be once a month we'd go to all these different houses and they're being a neighborhood and other communities have done it too and it's around the fire it's a happy hour so that's a chance where we talk about okay what are your needs how are you doing do you need help to do that and we begin to build from a very basic level that sense of community once again that I think has really been destroyed by our very individualistic consumer oriented society so I would say taking what's happened over the years we have been looking at it with that perspective of global and then the way in which we can begin to develop again yeah for sure that's a really really good talking point and I can't speak for everybody but I think that in the past couple years with COVID with a lot of things shutting down and coming to a close like you're mentioning the zoo and that booming we've seen that we can you know take steps towards renewable and energy efficient things and they might not be labeled as oh this is energy efficient like zoom but they help in the long run like not commuting 45 minutes to a job and instead having a zoom meeting like you mentioned so I think that's really important yeah and that reminds me of I was just having a talk with our advisor Mr. Seva about the similar thing around you know the solutions kind of seem overwhelming but he said similar thing to what you said around COVID and that kind of parallel in that we were able to switch our patterns pretty quickly around to do that we were also able to develop a vaccine in a rate that we never thought we could before because we actually put our time and energy and human thought into it and we put so much into it that we were able to actually accomplish accomplish it in a way that we never thought we could you know nothing's impossible in that regard we didn't think to put a man on the moon we could you know I don't know I think that's a point of hope that I would like to just hear from what you were saying yeah and to build on that I think we've seen a lot of necessary steps that have been taken like like a lot of climate summits with world leaders and the Copenhagen Accord and the Paris Accord but these are merely just you know words on paper and we actually have to see a lot of the goals that are outlined in those reports actually being met and our local and global communities working towards those goals that are outlined on reports I have a comment on your second talking point there I think actually the money that we need to spend on electrifying buildings putting in renewables making buildings more efficient those will return money immediately back to our local society in terms of labor for all the work that has been done for this stuff keeps the money in state so I don't think there really is an economic drag present the drag is to get the powers that be to invest the money in this that really has a very immediate return in terms of labor and the money being spent in the state in addition to the long term protection I would agree with that but I think that point is more both towards a lot of people that don't see it that way and see just the immediate shift being too hard I would also say that the economic cost can also translate into the amount of oil reserves that oil companies already have that they're not going to be able to sell even though they spent money they're going to lose money and build the infrastructure to switch their companies away from oil small things like that for as big things I would agree that in the long run it will save us money and some things will directly come back to us but I think the second point was just around that is usually when you bring up the way that we do things the immediate response especially yeah, politically usually is okay but like where do we have the money to make that transition it's just good to think about that but I would agree I think most people would agree that yeah, it's worth it in the end it will save us money Do you have a question? Yeah, I think I said when you did another one about my resolution What do you think about the idea that we're going to move from a civil society to a more spiritual society to increase the emissions that we need in the sustainable age to get rid of industrial as a long-term goal? Yeah, I mean I can only I don't know if anyone else has strong views on this I think we talked a lot about in my classes around, you know, when we are outlining like to address the problem we have to see how do we get here and the answers on it politically through industrialization but I think it's a question of yeah, it's nice still to have just a hard route to take it's a hard thing to get everyone on board with but yeah, I think there's a lot of talks about that there's a lot of great ideas around ideally we can end up in a way that we don't see a climate catastrophe what's hard is just balancing out how we can realistically get to those places in a timeframe that meets like the demands of the crisis which is to say like a very small time that's always nice to have bills that will be on that So, do you all have these conversations in your text? I definitely talk about this at home a bit I didn't really do Thanksgiving this year so I don't know but yeah, I think it's very important to discuss this with your family and I don't know I think talking about it is the only way to make change so you can impress the teeny-juice in your family by bringing this up and be like wow it really is a good Yeah, I think to just echo what everyone's saying I think nothing can get done if you just ignore it so having the hard conversations is good and especially because it sounds like until a lot of people in this room like a no-brainer to make some of the changes that seem easy yet we some people in the state are still electing people that don't align with these these ideas so that's a very real and direct way that you can change things is just by electing people who make the laws that decide that we should continue on a path that's harmful more you talk to people the less likely they might be to elect people that go against these ideas I recently I mean this isn't new but come across some young people who are in their 20s, 30-year-olds who have decided that they don't believe in voting anymore because it doesn't mean anything and that's a you guys have a knowing look there but it's a real problem because in a way it's the only thing that we can do it's just a small lever but it could be a powerful lever and I just wonder what you guys know about that you're not so beyond 18 yet but you're looking right into it and how you feel about that yeah I'm 18 and I did vote and I do encourage people to vote but I also definitely resonate with some of the how tired some people are or the distrust with the system and I get it and especially as a young person to see how poorly things have been run before it does feel like it's easy to give up hope and so I understand where they're coming from but I do think an important part of this change is there are still people actively making laws that can make a difference on a larger level than what we can locally and I think it's always good to support that at all levels yeah I mean it's like it's how about you know voting and revolution maybe instead of voting you know revolution instead of voting I don't know but it just seems like I feel really old when I say to a young person no you really should vote then they give me this like it's so meaningless and I just it makes me feel kind of stuck or something because we do you know I mean we couldn't be in a worse place right now in our democracy but we still have some grip on it you know so let's use it I definitely agree with that I think that voting is really important but you might have heard the phrase your dollar is your vote whenever you buy something you're essentially like if you go buy gas for your car you are voting for climate change essentially like it or not good point or you're voting for climate crisis are you running for office I've thought about it I think I'd make it good so you have a room full of grandparent nights do you have any questions for us like how people are what were you thinking they're being very polite well one question I've asked my grandparents in particular I know it's been touched on earlier in the presentation is education and I was curious I've heard his perspective and his knowledge but I was curious if you all had any classes or programs in high school and maybe even college that related to environmental studies or climate change studies I did environmental studies yes that was in college over 50 years ago no that wasn't very much I was trying to be sure the solution yes was that you need to I don't think it's that much I think in the 60s there was the fifth day and so forth where there was a lot of enthusiasm that was when I was already probably a little better but I remember the Cayuga River used to burn up the flames and the Earth healed itself there wasn't enthusiasm there and I think there were some results but perhaps not enough we also in the 60s just urban renewal remember that we just pulled down some neighborhoods and put in highways and walls and washed neighborhoods cultures I mean kind of relating to that one question that made me think when Noah was talking was what do you think that other people in your generation your friends or people you know around your age have similar feelings to us after hearing us speak or what do you think that disconnect is and why I grew up in the 60s and 70s and that's when I was in college and so there was a lot a lot of discussion and a lot of demonstrations and a lot of people's park and people wanting to do the very same things that we were wanting we're all wanting to do to have community to have peace and so I grew up and grew around all these people who got very much the same way that we're feeling now and then what begins to happen is that big businesses and consumers and it all starts to take over and we find that we're fighting the same that's back again being once again in this situation and what happened in the 60s and 70s and all our hope that you know so anyway I do find that a lot of people in my age are very much the same as I am and the problem is that I tend to hang out with a lot of other people exactly and that's for a month and I have friends all around the country all around the world who are deniers who have developed a more skin tone who just listen to some of those people and oh there's no problem here or I could just go up the road for them and there's a lot of music there's not at least just to get off analysis so I can turn off my lights and I can now use it a little drier and I can do all these things and I feel like okay I'm doing something but the rest of the world I can come back to that as a country it's bigger so all those cruises and all those people who are saying oh we're not affecting that or I don't want to deal with it because I want to go on real space I want to make a lot of money I just want to first of all I want to are you know first of all I want to say I appreciate how you suggest that we respond to one nothing is better than asking a question instead of saying no one of one of the things I think maybe I disagree with Allison a little bit we can all agree politically yes in this room I'm thinking that's more to the left than to the right it does not directly affect how you act around climate change and they it's like I live with a person I'll call with my wife she's extraordinarily on your side vehemently so and she was forced to make up a rule like okay you can visit one grandchild a year and they're using it most people even though they're going to vote how we vote that psychological connection or disconnection between your behavior and what you know up here is really an important issue to learn about more how do we reach people at an emotional level so they really feel okay about not doing so how well we're faced with this country in the world now is that this issue of climate change has become politicized over the years and that was not the case so much as I recall it wronged out in the sixth you know you had certain issues but everything was not where your politics were and it seems to me that that is today that's the difficulty that's the difficulty of having these conversations because we all tend to think that and there seems to be no sense of compromise we can get together we can find commonality and that's I guess to me is finding commonality and having the conversations but it's not the way to go get on the back you're on the right road and I think when I think young put it consensually you who are on the road have a code that you can live by you're on the right thing and I think you should have a lot of strength into teaching your own children when that comes around are there any other questions or comments or do you want do you want the last word thank you thank you for listening have a nice day thank you so much thank you for coming thank you so much