In the following dialogue, Elizabeth Bisno and Kate Spaulding share the experiences that led them to participate in organizing #LAClimateStrike2021, a student-led action set for noon on Friday, April 23 at Los Angeles City Hall. They are seniors at Laguna Blanca School.
Kate Spaulding: Discovering the threat of the climate crisis made me feel the need to act. There was an urgency to this feeling because the future that scientists have shown to be so likely is unfathomable and terrifying to me. Like Greta Thunberg — we're the same age — I was confused that more people weren’t concerned about the climate crisis. Why was I the one warning adults about the state of the world instead of watching them take action? But unlike Greta and other concerned young people, I didn’t begin by demanding change right away.
Elizabeth Bisno: For most of us, there’s a separation between the actions we take in our day-to-day life and those that we only dream of taking. Even though we make choices about our friends, or where to go to college, or what job opportunities we seek, we don’t always apply the same effort to shaping the world that we want to live in. Taking action and advocating for the health of our ecosystems shouldn’t be any different.