Jillian Kaster is a mother of two who lives in Toronto. Along with her family, she is trying to take personal action to decrease her carbon footprint. She joined the University of St. Michael’s College community in March as content specialist.
When I was a kid, Earth Day was a celebration. It was a day to thank the planet for supporting life, spend time appreciating nature, and learn about how we could respect our planet by conserving water and recycling. It’s been three decades since I was a child, and in that time, we have burned more than half the fossil fuels in human history.1 Forget recycling: we are racing headlong into a climate crisis that poses unimaginable risks to our planet. Now Earth Day has become a time to grieve and to reckon with our actions that have led to this point.
Each of us has a moment when climate change became real. For me, this moment was when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its unprecedented report in 2018 stating that our planet only had 12 years to reduce carbon emissions to avoid the worst-case devastation caused by climate change. I was on maternity leave with my then one-month old daughter. I’m still grappling with the implications of this report and what it means for my children’s future. I know their childhood will be different from my own: from methods of travel and their access to food to having to dealing with extreme weather and their relationship with nature.
Almost every day I take my kids outside for fresh air. Time spent in nature is a highlight for all of us. I appreciate stepping away from my phone or computer and watching them engage with the world around them. Kids understand instinctively that we live in a world of natural marvels. They inspect different rocks and decide which are worthy of taking home, wave to squirrels, smell flowers and bring me ladybugs or, less to my pleasure, wriggling snails and worms. We loved playing on the swings and slides in the unseasonably warm weather this spring, but I wonder how many more days like those will we have. What is the true price tag for these gorgeous days? Will this summer have more poor air quality days due to wildfires?
We’re bearing witness to a small fraction of the damage that is to come. I think of all the precautions my children already take to protect themselves from the planet that is supposed to be their home. They have weathered a pandemic, wash fruit and vegetables to remove the pesticides they’re grown in and diligently apply layers of sunscreen before going outside in the summer.
We’re making a conscious effort at home to reduce our impact by switching to a plant-based diet, choosing to walk or take public transit when possible and divesting from fossil fuels. These changes give my husband and me the opportunity to have early conversations with our children about climate change and its implications. We can share why we’re making the decisions that we do even when they’re inconvenient or unpopular.
So many of the emissions we produce are woven into the fabric of our society. To have a hope of reaching our emission reduction targets there’s much more work that needs to be done. To start, we will need to eliminate our reliance on oil, increase our usage of renewable energy, and rethink food supply chains.
Either we choose to change, or change will be thrust upon us. I don’t know what my children’s future will hold as the full consequences of our decisions and inaction are still unknown. I struggle with how to offer guidance in an area where my generation has come up short. But the climate emergency is also an opportunity to rebuild our society with new values that prioritize the well-being of our planet. Instead of passing along my own worries, I want to demonstrate to my children how to be a part of the solution. They have a right to imagine the future they want for themselves and figure out how to achieve it.
This Earth Day I plan on taking my kids on a nature walk. Instead of focusing on my grief, I will try to join them in their wonder and appreciation. We live on a planet filled with miracles and beauty and there is so much to preserve for those we love. The number of us who are trying to change is growing every day and while there is still so much to do, I find hope in these efforts. It may be harder, but this is still a day for celebration so long as we match it with commitments of our own.
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