In the 21st century, the scope and complexity of issues have piled up, constituting what Ariella Cook-Shonkoff refers to as a 鈥減olycrisis鈥� 鈥� which she defines as a 鈥渁 confluence of overlapping existential stressors鈥� in her recent book, Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids through Climate Change and Tumultuous Times.

The book guides parents and caregivers through navigating difficult conversations about  topics like climate change, racism, pandemics, gun violence and political polarization. 

A 鈥渄oomer mindset,鈥� as Cook-Shonkoff describes it, is a psychological barrier that 鈥渄eflates your energy, and squashes your sense of purpose and meaning in life. It can feel like a quick knee-jerk emotional response that overcomes you, or it can gradually eclipse you until one day you wake up under a blanket of depression.鈥� The antidote, in a word, is hope.

Cook-Shonkoff draws from her experiences as a marriage and family therapist and as a former member of the executive committee of the , which promotes climate-aware therapy. Here, she shares parenting insights from her book and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a clear-eyed view of what鈥檚 at stake for children, families and the planet.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Many of the parents you quote in the book said they feel isolated and ill-equipped for the challenges they鈥檙e faced with. How did we get to this point?

What we see again and again is a failure of adults in charge 鈥� whether in government or private sectors 鈥� to protect kids’ best interests and consider their healthy development and safety. Be it common-sense gun safety laws, digital-free school environments, restrictions on social media accounts, and so on. Wherever there was bipartisan compromise or regulatory bodies in the past to protect children’s health, it’s nonexistent now. So unfortunately the onus 鈥� and immense burden of raising kids 鈥� has shifted fully onto parents.

What made you want to make this more than just a book about climate change?

The book really was born out of some of my personal experience in grappling with raising kids while the wildfires were starting to intensify in Northern California. It was originally going to be a climate-focused book, and then my publisher and I decided to expand that. 

It’s hard to separate climate from all the other layers of existential stress. For example, I’ve worked with undocumented families, and for children, there can be real fear in leaving behind their parents and going to school. They hold that anxiety, and it manifests, often as a stomachache or a headache.The book also addresses gun violence and school shootings. It’s absolutely traumatic to be in school, a place of learning and curiosity, and to have to do active shooter drills again and again. 

How young is too young to talk about these topics?

People want an easy formula for this, but it comes through trial and error. I don’t think you necessarily need to introduce the tough subjects at a really young age. There’s a protected time when you’re filtering out a lot of the realities and letting your kid grow up into the world and make connections. As they get older and more curious, kids are asking questions and hearing things at school, and you have less control over what they’re exposed to. That鈥檚 when it becomes important to think about how to bring up a subject that is not maybe the most pleasant. There鈥檚 an expression, 鈥淣o fear before fourth grade,鈥� which means not introducing really scary stuff before they’re able to get support and think through issues in a slightly more sophisticated way. 

Sometimes, the subjects come up before fourth grade.

Parents don’t always have a choice, depending on different factors, about when they have difficult conversations with their kids. But I think how you talk is what makes the difference. If you speak in a gentle voice, and you’re calmer, and your own nervous system is regulated, that鈥檚 very different from if you鈥檙e on edge, sad, depressed. Do you have a lot of unprocessed emotions yourself? Those can transfer onto your kids. 

Beyond acknowledging the polycrisis, it sounds like taking care of yourself is one thing you want parents and caregivers to come away with. What are some other words of wisdom parents need right now?

Yes, taking care of ourselves and just continuing to regulate our nervous systems because we have to remember that it filters down to the kids. That’s really critical. I think that “the parent club” [a tool Cook-Shonkoff uses in her book to describe a community including parents, guardian, caregivers, foster parents, involved family or community members] is a way that parents can support each other. Parent groups have enormous potential for developing community and resilience in the face of toxic politics and culture.

How do parents move from self-care to social change? 

We do have to do emotional processing, or, as I call it, emotional metabolizing, and we can’t squash or deny and keep pretending life is a certain way. We have to just be real about it. And from there, we can raise healthier families and take action and have some society-level impacts. If you develop those capacities early in a child, by the time they鈥檙e in high school, they鈥檙e ready to be advocates for themsleves and to be part of their communities. 

What else have you seen that works?

My book explores spending time in the more-than-human world [a phrase coined by ecologist and geophilosopher David Abram]. We can see our place in the world or just understand things differently when we’re out in the natural world. Spending time in communities, creating these little intentional communities, making music, writing lyrics, writing poems, creating art, making a mural 鈥� all that stuff is more powerful than people realize. 

Who or what gives you hope?

Two women who influenced my work recently passed. One of them was Jane Goodall. Meeting her in my hometown when I was 17 years old was pivotal for me. She started a youth program in our town, and I was a president of the environmental club in the high school and was on this panel with her. Her steady advocacy around animal welfare, the environment and human rights countered my frustration with the adult world. It showed me that some adults did care. There was both a gentleness and firmness to her demeanor, and I could tell that she was a quiet force to be reckoned with. Joanna Macy, an eco-Buddhist philosopher-activist, also meant a lot to me. When I first came across her work, as a mom with my own eco-anxiety, it felt relieving to have my intense feelings of hope and grief so well articulated. And that she had a clear program 鈥� and a literal path forward through all of my pain and fear 鈥� was a lifeline for which I remain grateful for today.

While extreme heat endangers everyone, . Kids’ bodies heat up faster and aren鈥檛 as efficient as adults鈥� at regulating temperature. Children also tend to spend more time outside and rely on adults to make sure they stay hydrated and take breaks from the sun. These factors put them at risk of excessive exposure, which can lead to and short- and long-term health issues, including . It can disrupt . Unchecked, .

Schools should be safe spaces for students to flourish, but many buildings 鈥� particularly in 鈥� are ill equipped to protect young people from extreme heat. The average American school building is , and an estimated of districts don鈥檛 have adequate HVAC systems in at least half of their schools, leaving students vulnerable to extreme heat and poor air quality. 

As the climate gets hotter, communities that are now faced with more frequent, long and intense heat. Studies estimate that more than that historically didn鈥檛 need cooling systems must now install them, costing up to and impacting over . For many older buildings, installing air conditioning to support a new HVAC system. Yet many schools don鈥檛 have the budgets for these costly renovations. 

But without adequate environmental systems, students and staff face increasingly , both of which affect the quality of teaching and learning. From Pennsylvania to Arizona, kids felt these impacts throughout the 2024-25 school year. In just the first week of class, Philadelphia had to send that weren鈥檛 prepared for the heat. In March, to keep kids safe, a result of unusually high temperatures and a new normal of hotter school days.   

Ensuring that students can learn and thrive in safe environments requires policies that increase funding for school infrastructure. But the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are making moves that put more students at risk. For example, in March, the over $2.5 billion in funds to help public schools address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including money that was paying to . Now, many schools are no longer able 鈥� putting them back at square one. 

Alongside this loss of funding, House Republicans鈥� would terminate the earlier than provided under the Inflation Reduction Act 鈥� meaning schools would lose credits toward energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. The bill would also defund programs that monitor air quality in schools, which allow school leaders to make informed decisions that keep kids and teachers safe.

In addition, the Trump administration has and to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency responsible for monitoring climate, weather, oceans and coasts. NOAA is also the parent agency to the National Weather Service, the key source of reliable forecasting. Gutting these pivotal agencies means it will be for schools, families and local officials to prepare for extreme heat and provide protective measures for children. 

Kids need policymakers to instead of dismantling existing supports. To do so, state officials first need to better understand the conditions of their schools鈥� infrastructure through needs assessments and surveys. In the meantime, families and those working with children could benefit from clear guidance from state and local governments on heat safety standards that protect kids, similar to those . Districts could also use help navigating existing resources, such as applications for state and federal grants, that tend to be overly complicated and confusing. 

But ultimately, making sure all students have access to safe and healthy schools will take dedicated to modernizing buildings’ infrastructure. This needs to happen fast, before kids return to class for another inevitably hot school year. 

Meanwhile, over the summer, parents and providers should call on their local policymakers to implement communitywide climate resilience projects so kids can . These should include equipping public transportation and community spaces with energy-efficient cooling, installing and maintaining water fountains, planting trees to increase shade and equipping playgrounds with heat-resistant materials. 

It鈥檚 past time to invest in programs that provide safe and healthy learning environments for children. Following the , it鈥檚 critical that policymakers at all levels take big actions to protect children from the changing climate 鈥� not throw away the programs and agencies that provide support. If they don鈥檛 act soon, students will be forced to spend yet another school year in risky buildings that endanger their academic achievement, health and development.

Now? Rising average temperatures and extreme heat waves, ferocious storms, droughts, floods and increasingly prolonged smoke seasons that bring respiratory issues and airborne diseases mean the gift of outdoor play can no longer be taken for granted. 

To get a picture of how these extreme weather events are affecting parents of young children, researchers from the asked California parents with children under 6 about their family鈥檚 economic resources, their stress levels, and other aspects of well-being, including their experiences with extreme weather. The project, based in the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, summarized the responses in its , which complements a national RAPID on parents鈥� and child care providers鈥� experiences with extreme weather. 

Together, the two reports paint a clear portrait of families profoundly affected physically, emotionally and financially by increasingly concerning weather. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are disrupting access to clean water, food and safe living conditions, affecting children鈥檚 health and development and putting stress on parents and providers alike, the surveys report. 

鈥淭his is not tomorrow鈥檚 issue,鈥� says Joan Lombardi, who chairs RAPID鈥檚 National Advisory Council. 鈥淭his is today鈥檚. I work both domestically and internationally, and these results are for children around the world. They鈥檝e experienced flooding. It鈥檚 hot. They live in cities with poor air quality; urbanization is increasing around the world.鈥� 

One of the most striking findings from the national survey is that more than three in five parents had experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past two years. An even higher percentage of parents surveyed (69%) say they worry about the possibility of extreme weather events and how they might affect their children. More than half of child care providers reported experiencing at least one extreme weather event. 

The net effect is that three-quarters of parents and more than half of child care providers say they now spend less time outdoors with children due to extreme temperatures and weather. A significant percentage of parents (84%) say extreme weather negatively affects their physical health and well-being, and more than half report that their children鈥檚 physical health or emotional well-being is negatively affected.   

In both the California and the national survey, abnormally warm weather was the top concern of parents and providers alike. They have reason to worry. According to , children are more vulnerable to the effects of heat stress. They perspire less than adults and have a higher metabolism, so they overheat more quickly. They spend more time outdoors for play and other activities, which puts them at greater risk for heat exposure. Children are less likely to take a break and rehydrate, which can be dangerous and even fatal in excessive heat. 

Heat hits some children harder than others: Children who have asthma, which disproportionately affects , or who are overweight are especially sensitive to heat. According to , a map of tree cover in the U.S. is often a map of income and race; low-income populations are more at risk because they have less access to shade and to climate-controlled housing. 

In some of the largest U.S. cities, temperatures in the urban core can climb to a scorching 20 or more degrees higher than neighborhoods with trees and green spaces. found as much as a 10-degree difference between the shaded and unshaded parts of playgrounds. On a 90-degree day, that鈥檚 the difference between 鈥渆xtreme caution鈥� and 鈥渄anger鈥� levels for risks of heat illness, according to the . 

In addition to the health effects and safety worries, extreme weather stresses parents and providers financially. More time indoors 鈥� at home or in care 鈥� means higher utility bills for already-struggling individuals to try to mitigate the heat or cold, or filter air polluted by smoke or airborne particulates. 

鈥淲e find again and again that the rates of hardship among families and the early education workforce are higher than most people are aware of,鈥� says RAPID founder Philip Fisher, faculty director of the Stanford Center on Early Education. 鈥淚n our recent surveys, we found that 40% of families around the country are having difficulty in any month paying for basic needs like food and housing. Upwards of 70% of people who are providing care for other people鈥檚 children are struggling to make ends meet each month.鈥�

Lombardi says providers need resources to mitigate challenges that go beyond increased utility costs. Some need to renovate their facilities to allow for increased indoor play time, to add air conditioning, heat pumps or air filters, or to increase shade in their outdoor areas. Some are dealing with damage to their facilities from weather events, but are challenged to find money for repairs. 

鈥淭he child care workforce is already stretched beyond the limit,鈥� Lombardi says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not able to take care of their own family needs and when you add these increasing utility and facility costs, it鈥檚 an untenable situation. 

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of interest in the early childhood field in dealing with the issue, but no resources to do it 鈥� and what was available is shrinking.鈥� 

The first step in addressing these issues is to face them, the researchers say. The RAPID survey results make it clear that the effects of climate change and a warming planet aren鈥檛 just an issue for future generations: It鈥檚 here, it鈥檚 now and it鈥檚 not going away. Frederica Perera, author of 鈥�,鈥� writes that children born after 2020 will experience up to seven times more extreme heatwaves in their lifetimes on average than people born in 1960. 

The focused action needed from national, state and local entities to address the changing climate may seem out of reach for parents and providers trying to do the best for their children in the here and now, but these caregivers do have an important role in helping young children cope. Their most important contribution, Lombardi says, is nurturing care, which, according to the , comprises: good health, adequate nutrition, responsive caregiving, security and safety, and opportunities for early learning. 

Additionally, families, providers and communities must prepare ahead for emergencies, which are becoming unfortunately commonplace.

鈥淒ecades of high-quality research shows that the thing that can help children most 鈥� is their buffering and nurturing relationships with adults,鈥� Fisher says. 鈥淲hen we think about climate, we need to be thinking about not just the well-being of children but the well-being of the adults around them. If the adults are OK, they鈥檙e going to be in a better position when we have these kinds of [extreme weather] events.鈥�

In her fifth grade class in a Los Angeles school, on a day when outdoor temperatures reached 116 degrees, the heat gave Lilian Chin a headache. The air conditioner in her classroom was broken. Her fingers felt numb and she vomited in class, according to her mother. The nurse wasn鈥檛 available, so she was sent back to her hot classroom. 

By the time the school day was over and Lilian made it to her mother鈥檚 air conditioned car, she was exhausted and red-faced. At home, she vomited again and got a leg cramp. Veronica Chin rushed her 11-year-old daughter to an emergency room, where she was diagnosed with heat exhaustion 鈥� a serious condition that leads to a life-threatening heat stroke if not treated promptly. 

When Chin called the school, Haskell Elementary STEAM Magnet, to complain about the broken air conditioning, she received an email that a repair ticket had been created. The San Fernando Valley school, in the Los Angeles Unified School District, had marked the repair a 鈥渓ow priority.鈥�  (School officials did not respond to CalMatters鈥� questions when a reporter called and visited the campus.)

Chin was furious. 鈥淚鈥檓 trusting them with my children,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 thinking that my children are in a safe space, when they鈥檙e not.鈥�  

, California schools are unprepared to protect their students from extreme heat. Some schools don鈥檛 have air conditioning at all, because they were built before hotter climates made it a necessity. Others have old systems pushed to their limits, with school districts struggling to keep up with repairs or replacements with limited staff and funding. 

For instance, in Long Beach 鈥� which reached a degrees last month 鈥� all or most buildings in 13 public schools with about 14,000 students have no air conditioning systems. In Oakland, as many as 2,000 classrooms don鈥檛 have them. And in Fresno, officials have been overwhelmed with more than 5,000 calls for air conditioning repairs in the past 12 months.

Between 15 and 20% of California鈥檚 kindergarten through 12th grade public schools 鈥渉ave , and as many as another 10% of schools need major repair or replacement for their systems to function adequately,鈥� UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers wrote in a report last year.  Some advocates say that is likely an underestimate.  

School officials say they would need tens of billions of dollars to install and repair air conditioning. Many of the worst problems are in hot, inland school districts that serve low-income communities of color, where there are fewer financial resources to replace or repair them.

鈥淚f it鈥檚 too hot, just like if you鈥檙e too hungry, it鈥檚 almost impossible to learn, so the impact on students and teachers is great,鈥� said Paul Idsvoog, the Fresno Unified School District鈥檚 chief operations officer. 鈥淚f you have multiple systems that are 20 years old, sooner or later you鈥檙e not going to be able to keep up with the tide.鈥�

Voters in November will be asked to approve a  to fund repairs and upgrades of buildings at K-12 schools and community colleges, including air conditioning systems.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last month vetoed  for climate-resilient schools, including an assessment of when air conditioning systems were last modernized. State officials currently do not collect data on air conditioning in schools.

Nationally  need to update or replace their heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems in at least half of their schools, according to a federal study. 

In California, the problems are common statewide, jeopardizing children and teachers in inland as well as coastal communities.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just a hot mess,鈥� said Aaron Kahlenberg, a teacher at Los Angeles Unified鈥檚 John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills. 鈥淲hen it was cool out, it worked, and when it got hot, it didn鈥檛 work. It got to be very frustrating.鈥� 

Absences rise and learning drops on hot days

Hot classrooms lead to more student and teacher and absences, and studies show that they reduce children鈥檚 ability to learn.

On a recent day in Oakland when outdoor temperatures reached 88 degrees, 8th-grader Juliette Sanchez felt sticky and hot in a stuffy room at Melrose Leadership Academy. 

鈥淔or me it鈥檚 a lot harder to focus on what I鈥檓 doing,鈥� Sanchez said. 鈥淟ike, right now I鈥檓 sticking to the table. It鈥檚 uncomfortable to write. My arm is sticky and I鈥檓 just hot.鈥�

Student performance on exams declines by up to 14% on hot days, according to a 2018  in New York City. According to another study, an increase in the average temperature of 1 degree leads to , measured by changes in test scores. 

For Black and brown students, the learning losses are even greater, said V. Kelly Turner, a heat expert at UCLA鈥檚 Luskin School of Public Affairs who has researched hot schools. 

鈥淭hey鈥檙e already perhaps in schools that don鈥檛 have enough teachers or enough supplies, and then put on top of that, they鈥檙e going to hot homes,鈥� she said. 鈥淢aybe they don鈥檛 have any rights to install air conditioning systems. Maybe they live in mobile homes and have even fewer rights.”

A state program, , helps public schools improve air conditioning and water systems. Between 2021 and 2023, more than 3,800 schools were  $421 million to assess their systems, with 11 undertaking major repairs or replacements. 

However, in August, state legislators considered eliminating the program . Although the bill failed, the program has been closed to new applications since July. More than a dozen school districts have  to reopen applications. 

The attempt to gut the program worries school and environmental advocates, who say the state is failing to prioritize schools as climate change raises temperatures.

鈥淔or many schools, cooling is no longer just a nicety, but a necessity,鈥� Jonathan Klein, head of UndauntedK12, an organization that supports schools transitioning to zero emissions to reduce greenhouse gasses, said in a statement. 鈥淪tudents and staff deserve safe, healthy, resilient school campuses that support teaching and learning amidst extreme weather.鈥� 

Fixing air conditioners: $9 billion in LA schools alone

Most students return to school in mid-August or early September, when much of the state 鈥� particularly in the Los Angeles region 鈥� suffers its most intense heat waves. Some schools also operate year-round.

In the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, classroom temperatures reached into the mid 90s during an early September heat wave.

Teachers at several schools there told CalMatters that their requests for air conditioning repairs went unanswered or were slow to come. Portable units installed in classrooms were insufficient to keep temperatures comfortable enough for students to learn. Students were visibly lethargic from the heat. Some parents opted to keep their children home.

Kahlenberg, who teaches high school architecture, said he had asked for the air conditioning in his classroom to be repaired for weeks. By the time a heat wave hit in early September, it still wasn鈥檛 fixed. His classroom temperature reached 95 degrees.

鈥淓verybody was tired,鈥� Kahlenberg said. 鈥淚 told them if they needed to take a break, that if they didn鈥檛 want to work, it was totally acceptable. I would just extend the project. But it just shouldn鈥檛 have to be like that.鈥� 

Kahlenberg said teachers told him about 20 other classrooms at his school also didn鈥檛 have working air conditioning during that heat wave. 

A physical education teacher in another Los Angeles school said she spent weeks before the September heat wave trying to flag air conditioning problems in her office.  (The teacher wished to remain anonymous out of fear she would be disciplined for discussing the issue with CalMatters.)

Then, when the extreme heat came and the gymnasium temperature was too hot for the students, she and others informed the school. She said the school responded on the last day of the heat wave that students could sit outside in shade if they needed to. The suggestion dumbfounded her: Why would she have her students sit outside, where it was even hotter than in the gym?  

All schools in Los Angeles Unified have air conditioners. But Krisztina Tokes, the district鈥檚 chief facilities executive, said 50,000 faulty or aged units and pieces of equipment need to be replaced in the district鈥檚 more than 1,000 schools.

LA Unified, the largest school district in the state, has invested $1 billion to upgrade heating, ventilation and cooling systems in the last two decades, including $287 million for 20 projects that are currently under construction or being designed.

Tokes said officials work to keep students safe by following protocols when air conditioning breaks down, such as installing portable units or moving students to spare, air conditioned spaces. Outside, schools place portable misting fans and commercial-grade pop-up tents for shade. 

School days were cut short in schools where district officials felt they couldn鈥檛 provide a safe learning environment. Air conditioning systems are also checked at the start of summer and again just before classes start. Teachers and staff are trained to identify and respond to signs of heat related illness, a district spokesperson said.

鈥淯nder no circumstance should there be a child or parent thinking their health isn鈥檛 being addressed,鈥� Tokes said. 鈥淭here were conditions that were beyond the district鈥檚 control.鈥� 

Replacing all air conditioners in the district鈥檚 schools would cost at least $9 billion, according to Amanda Wherritt, Los Angeles Unified鈥檚 deputy chief of staff.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really about financial resources,鈥� Tokes said. 鈥淲e do not receive enough money from the state to either repair or replace our systems.鈥� 

Even coastal schools are sweltering 

While many classrooms throughout the state have air conditioning, those that don鈥檛 are often in coastal areas. Many of these schools were built in the 1950s or 60s, before the warming effects of climate change had worsened heat waves.

In Long Beach less than a decade ago, 51 out of 84 schools didn鈥檛 have air conditioning in all classrooms. Since then, a has helped the school district upgrade many of them. 

But 13 schools, serving about a quarter of the district鈥檚 students, still for at least another three years. One school, Polytechnic High School, which has about 4,000 students, will undergo major renovations, including adding air conditioning, that won鈥檛 be complete until 2028, said Alan Reising, Long Beach Unified School District鈥檚 facilities and operations assistant superintendent. In the meantime, officials installed portable air conditioners and outdoor shade structures in many of the schools, Reising said. 

Some inland Long Beach neighborhoods experience five high-heat days a year when temperatures exceed 97 degrees.

鈥淎rguably, we haven鈥檛 needed it,鈥� Reising said. But now, he said, 鈥渨ith the obvious signs of climate change, we have more hot days we have to deal with every year. There鈥檚 no thought that it鈥檚 going to get better in the future, so the need for air conditioning now has become very obvious.鈥� 

In the San Diego Unified School District, all 175 schools now have air conditioning. The district spent $460 million between 2013 and 2019 to install systems in the 118 schools that didn鈥檛 have them. 

While many of the systems are newer as a result, they鈥檙e still with students saying some classrooms reached around 100 degrees in September. Some San Diego neighborhoods have four high-heat days a year that exceed 91 degrees. 

鈥淲e were definitely experiencing some air conditioning issues throughout the district. We are doing our best to respond to all repair requests as quickly as possible,鈥� said Samer Naji, a district spokesperson.

In the Oakland Unified School District, about 2,000 classrooms in 77 schools have no air conditioners. In late September, outdoor temperatures reached 88 degrees; some Oakland neighborhoods have seven days a year that exceed 89 degrees.

Equipping those schools with air conditioning would be an expensive and complicated task that would cost at least $400 million, said Preston Thomas, Oakland Unified School District鈥檚 chief systems and services officer. 

At Melrose Learning Academy in Oakland, students said the heat makes it hard to focus. Lyra Modersbach, an eighth grader who is a member of an environmental club at the school, said she has noticed temperatures getting hotter year after year. When she鈥檚 home, she can wear cool clothes and rest to beat the heat, but she can鈥檛 do that at school. 

Modersbach said her school has a few portable air conditioners but if too many are on at once, they shut off. 

The heat 鈥渋s very distracting,鈥� she  said. 鈥湵踱�檝别 noticed having a harder time getting my work done or feeling frustrated.鈥�

As members of the Youth Versus Apocalypse environmental club, Modersbach and Juliette Sanchez and invest in an energy-efficient heat pump that will provide air conditioning. The district will use funds from a 2020 $735 million bond measure to  at their school next year.  

Inland schools have little money to invest

While many inland schools are fully air conditioned, some don鈥檛 have air conditioning in their gymnasiums, cafeterias and multi-purpose rooms.

Many inland school districts, where 100-degree days are common, have far fewer financial resources than wealthier coastal districts, said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for UC Berkeley鈥檚 Center for Cities + Schools. 

鈥淢ost of the spending on facility upgrades is based on local bond measures, which is based on your ability to levy property taxes,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o districts that have lower levels of property values per student are able to raise less money to upgrade their facilities.鈥� 

School districts in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire are among those that have invested less money because of lower property values and a smaller voter base to tap into, Hinkley said. 

鈥淭here鈥檚 no environmental justice or climate equity imperative. That would take an active regulation to change how bond disbursements are made in the state,鈥� said UCLA鈥檚 Turner. 鈥淭he state could go a long way by investing in better technical assistance to communities to apply for these funds and focusing on priority schools.鈥�  

Fresno Unified School District, where 90% of students are on free or reduced lunch plans, recently invested $60 million in federal funds to replace or install air conditioning systems in some of its gyms, cafeterias and multi-purpose rooms, said Alex Belanger, chief executive over the district鈥檚 operations. 

But the district needs about $500 million to improve its heating and ventilation systems, Belanger said. 

Belanger said during heat waves, it鈥檚to keep students cool. Staff work weekends and nights to repair air conditioning systems and the school provides temporary chillers and portable air conditioning if systems break down. 

Idsvoog said the Fresno school district would like to invest in energy efficient strategies such as building well-insulated schools with green space and oriented in a way that won鈥檛 absorb heat. But there鈥檚 simply no money to do so. 

鈥淭he reality is it鈥檚 not going to get any cooler and resources will always be a challenge for any school district,鈥� Idsvoog said. 鈥淎ny assistance, grants or state funding that can support those efforts is more than welcome.鈥�

Owen Driscoll, a 17-year-old senior at Rufus King International High School in Milwaukee, was skeptical about starting school after Labor Day this year, three weeks later than before. But he is beginning to see the advantages.

鈥淟ast year when we were on the old schedule, we had a few heat days [off in August] because it was so unbearable,鈥� he said, noting that few classrooms are air-conditioned. That made it hard to get into the rhythm of school, he said.

By delaying the start date and extending the school year into June, heat days are more likely at the end of the year, Driscoll acknowledged. But by then, he said, students are ready to be done and appreciate the unscheduled time off.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

Higher summer temperatures, driven by climate change, are pushing more school districts around the country to start the school year later. It鈥檚 contrary to a decades-long trend toward moving up start dates. In addition to the change at some schools in Milwaukee, school officials in Philadelphia and in Billings, Montana, also have cited heat as a reason to push back their start dates.

鈥淲e see examples all over the country,鈥� said Karen White, deputy executive director of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 only gotten worse,鈥� White said. 鈥淲e are at a point in time [in the school year when] parents and educators and students should be excited. It鈥檚 difficult when you are sending your kid to a classroom that鈥檚 more like a hot yoga class.鈥�

White said climate change has led some teachers to demand air conditioning in collective bargaining. She pointed to an in Columbus, Ohio, that called for climate-controlled classrooms by the 2025-26 school year.

In Philadelphia, district spokesperson Christina Clark said that beginning school after Labor Day will minimize the number of heat-related school closures, 鈥渨hich exacerbate inequities between schools that have air conditioning and those that do not.鈥�

鈥淗ot temperatures during the first few days of school leads to headaches, lack of attention and general frustration,鈥� Clark wrote in an email to Stateline.

In Billings, Montana, Superintendent Erwin Garcia noted that one of the district鈥檚 oldest high schools has no air conditioning and the other has it in only half the building.

鈥淚 noticed classrooms can be 90 degrees, 95 degrees, almost 100 degrees. And our students and teachers have to go through that process for two to three weeks,鈥� Garcia last December, when the district was discussing changes. The school board voted to push back this year鈥檚 start date to Sept. 3. The 2023-24 school year began on Aug. 22.

He estimated that fully air-conditioning the two oldest high schools would cost $24 million 鈥� and that the district would have to ask taxpayers for the money, according to KTVQ.

A lawmaker in Texas, where most schools started the week of Aug. 12, plans to file a bill in the next legislative session to delay school openings as a way to reduce stress on the state鈥檚 power grid.

鈥淲ith 1,100 new residents daily and an ever-expanding economy, opening schools before Labor Day is an awfully wasteful stress on our power grid. Cooling thousands of buildings 鈥� often the largest buildings in a community 鈥� during the hottest months of the year makes no sense,鈥� Texas Republican state Rep. Jared Patterson .

鈥淪chools should be completely closed during July & August, saving taxpayer dollars on cooling expenses and our grid at the same time,鈥� he wrote last month.

In general, schools in the Northeast start later, schools in the Deep South, earlier. In places that are hot for much of the year, such as Arizona, Florida and Texas, the heat is less of a concern because nearly all schools are fully air conditioned. In the six New England states, however, almost no students go back before the end of August, while in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, about three-quarters of students don鈥檛 return until after Labor Day, according to a .

Contrary to popular belief, the school calendar has little to do with the agrarian economy, . If it did, spring planting and fall harvesting seasons would be days off school for farm kids.

What is true is that in recent years, historically hot summers have forced many schools 鈥� no matter when their start dates 鈥� to temporarily close. Last month, for example, some schools in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin all closed or dismissed students early because of excessive heat.

And last year, schools in nine states 鈥� Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin 鈥� during the first week of September either closed or let kids out before scheduled dismissal, according to a by CBS News.

Climate change will 鈥減robably hasten a push back to a September start in places that have somewhat temperate Junes,鈥� said Joshua Graff Zivin, an economist and director of the Cowhey Center on Global Transformation at the University of California San Diego.

Zivin said more schools should invest in air conditioning, but even with it, a hot commute to school or home temperatures too high to get a good night鈥檚 sleep affect students鈥� performance and might lead to calls for later school start dates.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2020 found 41% of school districts across the country need to update or replace heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning  systems in at least half of their schools, amounting to about 36,000 schools.

The federal agency didn鈥檛 measure how many schools have no air conditioning at all, according to Jackie Nowicki, a director in GAO鈥檚 team that focuses on education.

In Milwaukee, Adria Maddaleni, chief human resources officer for the Milwaukee Public Schools, said the later start was partially the result of a parent survey. Only about a quarter of classrooms in the district have air conditioning.

鈥淚 thank the Lord we did not have early start this session,鈥� Maddaleni said in an interview, 鈥渁nd we didn鈥檛 have to worry about canceling school.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

Mark Swartz: There鈥檚 so much to say about climate change and children. Moms Clean Air Force is about more than just air quality, right?

Karin Stein: As an organization, we fight for clean air, because air is water and nature writ large; it means fighting for healthy ecosystems and healthy people.聽We focus on air because it touches all the rest. When people talk about mercury in water, it’s coming from air pollution emitted from coal plants that settles into our creeks and lakes. It then gets deposited in the fatty tissue of fish, which then gets eaten, and if a pregnant person eats the fish, that mercury keeps concentrating further in their fatty tissue. The next thing you know, it鈥檚 in the fatty brain tissue of an unborn child at much higher concentrations than when it first left the smokestack of the coal plant. Mercury in children鈥檚 brains can lead to serious developmental issues, including impaired motor function, learning impairments and behavioral problems.

Swartz: What is the relationship between Moms Clean Air Force and ?

Stein: EcoMadres is Moms Clean Air Force. It鈥檚 a branch that connects culturally and linguistically with a diversity of Latino communities.

Swartz: Have you always lived in Iowa?

Stein: I think of myself as a South American child, a Central American teenager and a North American adult. I was born in Colombia. I grew up in the remote eastern savannas聽of Colombia with no electricity and lots of聽wild animals. I had a pet anteater and monkey. As a teenager I聽lived in Costa Rica and continue to be involved with a rainforest conservation foundation there.

In 1980, I got a scholarship to come to Grinnell College and thought, 鈥淥kay, I鈥檒l jump on a plane, get a four-year degree and go back.鈥� But then life happens, and before you know it, 40 years have gone by. I live on the edge of a state park, Rock Creek State Park, and everything else around us is farmland. I have spent most of my life in rural areas around the Americas. This gives me a very strong sense of how various environments have changed as a result of the climate crisis.

Swartz: What did you study?

Stein: I have an undergraduate degree in biology and a master鈥檚 degree in horticulture.

Swartz: And you鈥檙e also a professional musician. How does that fit into the picture?

Stein: After grad school I was a researcher, but once my first child was born, I turned my musical hobby into my profession.聽Moms Clean Air Force recognizes that humans are multifaceted and that there are various ways in which we connect. They鈥檝e encouraged聽me to use music in my community engagement work for Moms, because, as a Latin American, I understand how centrally important music is to our cultural identity. Music is a trust-building language, especially among Latinos. So it鈥檚 a tool. It鈥檚 not the main tool I use in my work for Moms, but it鈥檚 a tool, and we need to use all the tools we can.

Swartz: So, you come to rural Iowa with a different perspective on the natural world from your neighbors, but you鈥檝e probably learned a lot from Iowans about how they view the soil and the planet and the natural world. What kind of conversations do you have?

Stein: Iowa has聽a really interesting mix of people. My husband and I talk a lot to the family farmers who are still there, but they are an endangered lifestyle, encroached upon by big corporate farming operations. Family farmers tend to be interested in doing what鈥檚 right for the soil, the water, even the climate.聽 You don鈥檛 hear those concerns expressed by farming corporations.

Swartz: Some people might be surprised that Iowa has air quality issues.

Stein: All it takes is one source of pollution and you have a problem. In northwest Iowa, we have some of the highest asthma and cancer rates in the country. Iowa also has聽six of the most polluting coal plants in the whole country. I鈥檓 involved in a coalition that鈥檚 asking MidAmerican Energy, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, to close its remaining coal plants by 2030, because their plants are hurting Iowans, especially people of color. Another thing I鈥檇 like to mention is that in rural areas, proper air quality monitoring is often overlooked.

Swartz: I鈥檇 love to hear about a family that you鈥檝e worked with.

Stein: I鈥檒l tell you about two on diagonally opposite ends of Iowa. There is a woman in southeast Iowa, in the region near Muscatine. She has two boys. One of them, and this is where I start really choking up, the younger one, who is now eight, was born asthmatic. Because of bad air quality in his neighborhood and his school, he鈥檚 never played outdoors in the winter. Ever. There are a lot of children who cannot play outside during a good portion of the year because of poor air quality.

And then let鈥檚 travel to northwest Iowa, where I just recently met Indigenous leaders. There鈥檚 a big Winnebago settlement near one of the two coal plants owned by MidAmerican Energy. And it was simply heart wrenching to hear their testimony about the extremely high cancer and asthma rates in that community. And it boils down to insufficient safeguards on emissions and insisting on continuing to use technologies that we don鈥檛 have to use anymore, because we have better options now.

Swartz: It must be gratifying to help them tell their stories to policymakers.聽

Stein: Some of my proudest moments have been getting very shy immigrants to understand that legislators are not the police, and that the stories of their children are important, because legislators cannot know everything.

Swartz: When you鈥檙e talking about small lungs and brains, they鈥檙e resilient, but they鈥檙e very vulnerable.

厂迟别颈苍:听Children are developing organisms with fast metabolisms, breathing faster than adults and inhaling dirty air closer to the ground, at the level of exhaust pipes. We know that particulate matter inhaled by mothers enters the bloodstream, enters the child鈥檚, the fetus鈥檚 organism, and can create heart, brain and lung damage before the child is born.

Extreme heat can do that too: it can lead to premature births and many other complications. And those most affected are聽always the people who can least afford it, the people who least contribute to our climate crisis, who can least afford to protect themselves from the climate crisis.

Anything we can do for our children while they鈥檙e developing 鈥� in terms of keeping them healthy now and in terms of slowing down the climate crisis 鈥� I can鈥檛 think of a more important job, frankly, as a mom and as a world citizen.

Every child must be educated about the environment and climate change, not only in science classes, but as a subject integrated throughout all classrooms 鈥� be it reading a short story on wildfires in an English class, calculating fossil fuel emissions in math or creating stunning posters and imagery about the state of the planet鈥檚 plastic crisis in art. Education inspires curiosity and fires up imaginations.

The power of art was recently brought vividly to life with the , which saw the artwork of two students shine 鈥� Luke Pohl Bogdan, from Maryland, who won the 5-to-17 age group with an entry titled Sparring Earth, and Teague Smith, from Idaho, who was the 18+ age group winner with a Plastic Trash Shark.

For both students, taking part in the competition was a way of speaking up about an issue they care about while embracing a subject they love 鈥� in this case, art.

鈥淚t made me really proud to win the poster competition, as this is the start of my artistic journey,鈥� said Luke. 鈥淧lastics are destroying Earth and harming animals. We must act before Earth becomes a big waste pile. I like to draw action cartoons, and we need action to save Earth from plastics.鈥�

For Teague it was the seas that he specifically wanted to focus on. 鈥滻 chose to spotlight the oceans in my poster because they鈥檙e disproportionately affected by plastic pollution,鈥� Teague explained. 鈥淧lastics present a significant threat to our planet鈥檚 ecosystems, emphasizing the urgent need for action.鈥�

The competition exposed the students to three important aspects of climate education that EarthDay.org presented at the in Denver on March 20 and will be a key part of a released April 8.

First, it gave them an outlet for expressing their concerns about the climate, which is an important way for them to deal with their anxiety about the very real and documented climate crisis. Second, it reinforced , which trains them to make the right choices for the planet by using less energy and resources and being much more mindful of pollution and land and water degradation. And third, it highlighted the skills and enthusiasm young people will need to fill critical jobs in a green economy 鈥� increasingly referred to as the green-collar workforce.

Dennis Nolasco, a member of EarthDay.org’s education team, helped ease his students鈥� climate anxiety when he was a teacher in California and wildfires devastated the landscape. Realizing that climate change is not something far off in the future, but here and now, he designed a unit for his eighth-grade English class around climate change, and they were fascinated by it. 

He asked them to read a series of short stories about other extreme weather events and then challenged them to write their own about what they had just experienced with the wildfires. They then read their stories out in class, and he led a discussion about how these made them feel and what they revealed about the changing climate.

鈥淚 was slightly amazed to see how much information they soaked up from local news as we began discussing the causes of the fires,鈥� Nolasco said. 鈥淢ost importantly, the students asked  鈥� will the fires be back? I learned that the truth is powerful. Those students benefited from having the time and space to understand the world around them.鈥�

Lessons like these also counter misinformation about climate change. The science is in 鈥� it is real. Teaching that is critical. To further help promote the cause of climate education, our organization has just released a as a call to action for every state to assess where it is right now and where it needs to get to in terms of climate education. Clicking on each state produces a list of what is taught about the climate and what specific issues that state is facing. It also suggests whom people can write to if they want to press for climate education as a mandated topic at state level.

鈥淥ne of the things we realized after visiting a lot of schools locally, in Virginia and Maryland, is that parents, teachers and students really wanted to know what their own home state was teaching on climate education and then compare it to what other states were teaching 鈥� or even if they were teaching it at all,鈥� said Emily Walker, an EarthDay.Org education coordinator.

At the college level, the organization is working with student groups to help them advocate for environmental causes on their own campuses, with plans to roll out teach-ins throughout April. 

With Earth Day on April 22, there鈥檚 never been a better time to advocate for teaching the next generation about the climate crisis and giving them the tools they will need to cope with it. Climate education can play a critically important role in saving the planet.

Every Tuesday evening, Hannah Choi jumps online to join two-dozen high school students for lessons in advocacy.

They are all interns with BIPOC [biracial, indigenous, people of color] , a program created by the nonprofit , which organizes the weekly training workshops. It鈥檚 here where Choi and her peers learn to strategize to advance the environmental and social change they want to see.

鈥淥verall, it has inspired me to become more politically active in my community, and more aware of what鈥檚 going on, that I can make change with my actions,鈥� she said.

Jim Driscoll is president of the non-profit and a veteran climate activist who began the internship program in 2021 and serves as its coordinator. 鈥淎s a first step we decided to hire a group of interns from local high schools to educate them about the climate crisis and to help build our relationships within and across our BIPOC priority communities,鈥� he said.

The Climate Emergency Fund, a national organization, and various Maryland faith-based and environmental groups have contributed $75,000 to train and pay the 150 interns who have engaged in the program.

Interns partner for change

During the Tuesday meetings students are introduced to leaders of non-profits, immigrant, labor and environmental groups, and encouraged to partner with them. They are also taught the basics of lobbying, and how to write letters to local and state officials, testify at hearings, and take their message into social media and the street as part of non-violent protests organized by the interns and their partners.

Choi, a senior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, was among the first interns, and has grown with the program. Over three years she has advocated at rallies for the Green New Deal, called for electric buses at the Montgomery County Board of Education, and helped coordinate support for rent stabilization and social housing in the county.

Shortly after Watkins Mill High School sophomore Tracy Espinoza joined a year ago, she testified before the Montgomery County Council on the rental bill with a story about a friend鈥檚 struggle for affordable housing.

鈥淪he constantly had to move around. It was hard for her, to build up a new life every single time she moved,鈥� Espinoza told council members.

Choi says going door-to-door in Gaithersburg alongside volunteers with the non-profit Everyday Canvassing, she heard similar tales.

鈥淭here were people who said that the rent prices had doubled, that they couldn鈥檛 keep up with them and [feared] they would be homeless,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd, just hearing those stories continuously, a mother and a veteran, they made me aware of how important the issues we are fighting for [are].鈥�

Youth take seat at the table

Twenty organizations signed on to an intern-initiated letter on rent control. The students claimed victory when the Montgomery County Council voted to cap rents at 6% in 2023.

鈥淭he interns were a very popular addition to the campaign and made a significant contribution to its success,鈥� Driscoll said. 鈥淭his BIPOC internship has also helped move the local climate movement from relatively isolated, political weakness to greater connection with the BIPOC, youth and labor communities in a diverse coalition committed to social housing, an important climate objective.鈥�

Choi has taken her new activism to the Maryland General Assembly, where twice this session she has served as page. It’s where she met Del. Vaughn Stewart (D-Montgomery), sponsor of , a bill that would create a pilot program for mixed-income social housing, which Choi stepped up to support.

鈥淚 think that it鈥檚 the first time 滨鈥檝别 ever seen it done, where someone is serving as page, and then simultaneously, they take their page hat off and put on their advocacy hat to testify,鈥� Stewart said. 鈥淧eople were impressed that she was there. It made a big difference.鈥�

The bill subsequently crossed over to the Senate with bipartisan support.

Junee Kim, like Espinosa, is a sophomore at Watkins Mill, in Gaithersburg. She credits the internship with broadening her network to include other student groups like , whose constituency is youth under 35. Kim started the first YPP high school chapter at Watkins Mill, and was elected president of the larger organization, and its outreach and campaign chair, with Espinoza at her side as vice president and policy director.

鈥淲e generally focus on policing, restorative justice in high schools [and the] school-to-prison pipeline.鈥� Kim said. 鈥淚 testified [before] the Montgomery County Board of Education to fund restorative justice coaches in every high school, [and am] currently advocating [for] a restorative justice survey for the school system.鈥�

Advocacy strengthens democracy, sense of self

Kim, Choi and Espinoza are first generation Americans, daughters of immigrants. Kim says the internship has turned her from a retiring, soft-spoken person into a young woman who is unafraid to speak her mind, and comfortable listening to views unlike her own. 鈥淭his has made me so much more confident,鈥� she said.

Choi says the process has made her more open minded. 鈥淚 think that we all need to step back and try listening from other perspectives, try any opportunity to become as informed as you can be, just because that鈥檚 really important in our democracy,鈥� she said.

Espinoza adds that young people are also in a fight for their future, that action today has consequences. 鈥淏eing part of this really taught me how to advocate for myself, how to standup for myself, how to find my voice and the importance of using my voice,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 learned I love getting involved with public policy. I found my passion within government. And that is something I hope to continue as long as I can and hope to pursue it.鈥�

At a recent Tuesday meeting interns were busy planning their next action, a protest rally scheduled for April 23, at the Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education in Rockville. There they will argue their case for the school system to recommit to purchasing only electric school buses.

鈥淩ecent developments have seen MCPS revert to purchasing diesel buses, which pose significant health risks and contribute to climate and environmental harms,鈥� an internship says.

This was originally published in .

On January 31, the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) hosted a discussion exploring how the environment affects early childhood development and what we can do to address the impact of climate change on young children. , dean and Saris professor of education and economics at HGSE, opened the discussion, with featured guest , vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. Clinton then moderated a panel of experts that included:

• , president and CEO, National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI)
• , director of education and policy, Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
• , chief science officer, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
• , Saul Zaentz senior lecturer in early childhood education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Here are our top five takeaways:

1. The climate crisis is urgent and young children are particularly vulnerable. Long reminded viewers that 2023 was the hottest year on record, jeopardizing the health of young children in particular. She noted that our warming climate will 鈥渋ncrease the prevalence of asthma, food insecurity and stressful experiences for both children and their caregivers鈥� and have 鈥渦ndeniable negative effects on student learning.鈥� She shared that the prenatal period through early childhood are 鈥渟ensitive periods of development,鈥� given the important physical and cognitive development that occur during these stages. 鈥淭his is not some future challenge,鈥� she warned. 鈥淚t鈥檚 here now.鈥�

Burghardt outlined three main categories that most affect young children鈥檚 biological systems: air, temperature and water. For example, higher temperatures 鈥渁re leading to babies being born too early or too small,鈥� and extreme wet weather events are causing floods in people鈥檚 homes that uproot children and their families for a length of time.

2. We know the solutions to combat the effects of climate change on young children. The good news is, as the panelists confirmed, we have the knowledge, tools and even recent federal legislation to address climate change: that became law in 2022 is predicted to reduce carbon emissions by around 40% by 2030.

Burghardt outlined three ways we can tackle climate change to improve conditions for young children.

First, we can address 鈥渉arms鈥� from extreme heat events through cooling centers and other mitigating strategies. Second, we can improve the conditions of places where young children spend their time through 鈥済eothermal heat pumps and other technologies that can make early care and elementary schools cooler.鈥� Third, we can address the causes of the planet warming through leveraging solar technologies, 鈥済reening鈥� the places where pregnant people and little children most frequent and installing smart surfaces like porous pavement as well as green roofs.

Austin cited the that outlines ways the United States can support young children ages zero to 8 to thrive amidst ongoing climate change.

3. Climate change affects some populations disproportionately, including Black children and families. According to a by the Atlantic Council, Black children aged 17 and under are 34% to 40% more likely to be diagnosed with asthma depending on the range of temperature increases based on where they live.

This disproportionate impact of climate change on Black children led NBCDI to list among its eight 鈥渆ssential outcomes鈥� for Black children the ability to 鈥渂reathe clean air and drink clean water.鈥� As Austin noted, 鈥淲hat we鈥檝e realized, especially as we are in conversations with the climate experts, is that each one of those eight outcomes will be completely disrupted by climate change if we鈥檙e not aggressively centering children in the climate work that we鈥檙e seeking to do.鈥�

Basu also cited a statistic that anywhere from 5% to 13% of the racial achievement gap 鈥渃an be attributed to heat by itself,鈥� demonstrating the outsized impact that climate change has on children of color.

4. We must listen to and share stories of hope, not just data and despair. Basu shared his concern about the mental health of young people in light of crises like climate change and other issues. As an alternative to despair, he endorsed promoting 鈥渟elf-efficacy,鈥� sharing positive examples of action and advocating for change through storytelling. 鈥淭he storytelling is critical here,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e need to present the data clearly, but I want them to be picturing a child.鈥�

Earlier in the conversation, Clinton also encouraged adults to build agency in youth, saying, 鈥淚t is so hugely important, of course, that we teach kids about the science of the world around us. That鈥檚 what helps fuel their curiosity and their creativity, and also to build them as citizens, because I think it is really important to help kids feel like they can still make a difference.鈥�

Austin stressed that as we share stories and solutions, we must be 鈥渓earning from, listening to and being guided by those most impacted鈥� and 鈥渆mbracing Black and brown people as valuable and necessary to idea generation, implementation and evaluation of solutions is really critical.鈥�

5. Children model for us how we can approach our physical world: with wonder. Li reminded participants that young children are fascinated by the environment, and we can learn a lot from them about their relationship to the environment as one of wonder versus exploitation. He urged us to widen our definition of health to include relational health with the planet.

Li encouraged all to embrace 鈥渢hat sense of wonder that young children have about the world鈥� and that 鈥渨hen you wonder about something鈥攁 tree, an ant, a person鈥攜ou care about that thing that you鈥檙e wondering about. And, if you care about that thing, then you take action for it, and I think that鈥檚 the kind of relational solution in addition to the technical solutions that we need as we look ahead.鈥�

Clinton reminded viewers of the critical role parents and adults play in giving kids access to that wonder in the first place: 鈥淚 was thinking about how lucky I was, but also am, that I spent a lot of time in national parks as a kid and in state parks in Arkansas鈥� and how grateful I am that my parents understood that I needed that sense of wonder. And so I鈥檓 going to call them tonight and say thank you.鈥�

So I checked. 

Apparently some teenagers had wandered onto the Washington, D.C. campus that day and sparked an altercation with a few elementary schoolers. When it escalated and staff got involved, the older kids ran off, vowing to return the next week with a gun. My phone trilled through the weekend as families ground their gears, comparing notes on what their kindergartners were reporting at home and speculating in search of possible details. Most of all, folks seemed to be trying to figure out how they were supposed to feel about a situation this abnormal and whether it was safe to send their kids to school on Monday.

And yet, though we all marinated in collective anxiety that weekend, folks settled down fast. After all, this was just the way things are now in the United States, right? In fact, come to think of it, the school had a number of lockdowns last year because of active shooters in the area, right? And since the school was promising to ask for extra police patrols, campus might even be safer than usual, no? By Sunday night, nothing had materially changed about the situation, but folks had talked themselves out of worrying. 

In other words, they鈥檇 convinced themselves that there really wasn鈥檛 anything to see here. Just another iPhone ding, just another piece of childrearing freight for families to take aboard as the week started 鈥� like a banal, gothic footnote tacked on to the weather forecast. Ding! Families should plan extra time for dropoff on Monday morning, as there鈥檚 a chance of severe thunderstorms and a heightened likelihood of gun violence.

. But that doesn鈥檛 mean that we should pretend that it鈥檚 normal. No school, no community, no family 鈥� no child 鈥� should normalize active shooter situations at schools. 

Of course, that sort of pretending is pretty much the standard national ask for today鈥檚 parents of young children: please accept that our crumbling social present is simply as good as things will ever get. To make it through the day without hyperventilating, we have to pretend that gun violence, including in and around schools, is both inevitable and acceptable. We have to pretend that widespread opting out of vaccines is a reasonable, respectable position despite the for our children. We have to accept imaginary information about how our kids are actually doing academically despite ample evidence to the contrary. We have to accept that elected officials want to yank books with LGBTQ characters from school libraries under the guise of something they’re calling “.” 

And those are just the near-term fantasies forced upon us. Look down the road at the world we鈥檙e preparing for our children鈥檚 futures, and there鈥檚 so much more daily make-believe required. We have to pretend that it鈥檚 fair that most of our kids will generally need at least a B.A. to get reliable access to middle-class incomes 鈥� and that . We have to act like autocratic 鈥� and increasingly 鈥� threats and behavior by a former, and perhaps future, president is just part of the normal push and pull of politics. We have to accept that that would-be tyrant鈥檚 fellow partisans will to check his erratic behavior. And most of all, we have to pretend like the 鈥� 鈥� air is normal, that our collective disregard of the climate crisis will somehow just work itself out. 

This is an exhaustive amount of cognitive dissonance to carry around, and, critically, it鈥檚 supplemental to the already substantial work of raising children. Activists, researchers, policymakers and educators who care about improving children鈥檚 opportunities and outcomes are eventually going to have to wrestle with this dismal situation. 

Parenting is, at its base, a project of hope. It requires adults to temporarily take control of a life project, their children鈥檚, that is not, fundamentally, their own. It requires guiding kids only as much as necessary, until they鈥檙e ready to chart their own path. And above all, it involves preparing them to be honest and constructive participants in the world they share with others. But it鈥檚 hard to get there when so much of daily parenting requires self-deception. 

, this dynamic goes a long way towards explaining why young Americans are cynical about their country, its politics, and its future. ? 

The teenagers never followed through, as it happens. Maybe the additional police patrols deterred them that Monday. Maybe for good. Maybe just for now. But the next Thursday, there was another shooting at 3 p.m. about a half-mile from campus. It was just off the route we use to bike with our kids to school. I鈥檇 go a different way, but that would send us through a corridor that suffered a rash of shootings in the past few years. For families, from the country鈥檚 abnormally high levels of violence near campuses. Just this month, there was at both of my kids鈥� schools. 

Sigh. Well, I鈥檓 sure we鈥檒l muddle through 鈥� or at least we鈥檒l pretend like we are.

For many Washington families, child care is not only expensive, it鈥檚 hard to find.

Lawmakers are now looking to what might seem like an unlikely place to help solve the problem: the state鈥檚 forests.

The Department of Natural Resources wants lawmakers to approve a bill that would allow the agency to purchase land and funnel the state revenue it generates to grants that would help pay for opening child care centers in communities where they鈥檙e lacking.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

This land would be part of a new trust. The revenue would come from either logging or leaving forests intact to capture carbon dioxide 鈥� a process known as carbon sequestration.

Bill sponsor Rep. Kristine Reeves, D-Federal Way, said the plan offers a way to creatively fund child care while also helping the planet.

鈥淥ur natural resources can fund our social equity needs,鈥� Reeves said. 鈥淲e can do both.鈥�

鈥楤enefits would be far-reaching鈥�

faces an array of difficulties. Staff turnover is high, wages tend to be low, and centers operate on thin profit margins and can struggle to stay open.

The state estimates about need care because both parents are working, but only about 28% have access to a nearby licensed provider. Meanwhile, the average annual cost in 2022 for sending a toddler to day care was about $14,000 at a child care center, according to .

Reeves鈥� bill has support from child care advocates and business groups. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle still have questions, including about how the land would be managed and where the money to support the initial purchase of it would come from.

Lauren Hipp, with the nonprofit MomsRising, said revenue from the trust could help ease issues with child care shortages and unaffordability across Washington.

鈥淭he benefits would be far-reaching and enormous,鈥� Hipp said during a public hearing on the bill.

The Seattle Metro Chamber and the Association of Washington Business were also among those testifying in favor of the bill at a hearing last Friday.

If enacted, the land trust would expand on work the Legislature did with the sweeping Fair Start for Kids Act, passed in 2021. That law directed revenue from the state鈥檚 new capital gains tax toward expanding access to early learning and child care and increasing rates for providers.

The land trust proposal would help fill a gap the earlier law did not fund, which is helping with the cost of setting up a child care business, Reeves said.

The Department of Children, Youth and Families would administer the grants under a program that was temporarily funded with federal relief dollars that flowed during the pandemic. That program, currently unfunded, is set to expire in 2026.

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said using state lands to fund child care is a natural extension of the work the department already does.

The Department of Natural Resources manages about 3 million acres of trust lands, which brings in funding for K-12 schools, state universities, prisons and counties. The lands include forests, agricultural property, real estate and more.

鈥淐hild care is the foundation holding up every single sector of our economy, which makes it very relevant to the Department of Natural Resources,鈥� Franz told the Standard.

Unsettled questions

During a public hearing on Friday, lawmakers on the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee had concerns about how lands under the proposed trust would be managed.

Lawmakers from rural areas asked that the state focus only on acquiring forested lands at risk of being converted into residential or commercial property, and that these lands remain open for timber harvests.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to me as a legislator from a very rural area that these stay working forests,鈥� Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, said.聽Franz said this is one of the department鈥檚 goals.

Some lawmakers also pushed for more specific definitions in the bill, such as what lands are considered at risk for conversion to residential or commercial use and which child care centers could receive grants.

Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, said the bill is an interesting idea but that there are a lot of generalities surrounding how it would work.

Another point of contention is where the funding would come from to start the trust.

The department wants to use $100 million from the state鈥檚 Climate Commitment Act, which generates funds by requiring industrial polluters to pay for carbon emissions. This money would go to purchase some of the land to start the trust. Under current law, money from the climate program must go to programs that reduce the effects of climate change.

House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, told reporters last week she wasn鈥檛 sure if the land trust proposal fits that description.

Franz argues that it does, given that the purchased land could help absorb carbon.

Ryan Murphy, Franz鈥檚 deputy chief of staff, also pointed to the unexpectedly high amount of money that came in through the climate program. The Legislature is looking at ways to spend those funds, Murphy said, and setting up the child care land trust could be an option that benefits both the environment and families.

One twist is that future Climate Commitment Act revenue could be cut off if voters approve on the November ballot that would repeal the law.

Reeves said the state could set up the trust this year and look for funding later. But tying it to the Climate Commitment Act, she said, could ensure the program helps fight climate change.

She also acknowledged that establishing a new land trust could take more time than what鈥檚 left in the 60-day session. If the bill falls short this year, Reeves said she hopes to keep working on the policy in the future.

鈥淲orking families can鈥檛 wait, quite frankly, for us to figure this out,鈥� she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

The work began as a series of listening sessions that generated the ideas and perspectives in the Action Plan. 鈥淎s heartbreaking as those stories were, it鈥檚 also inspiring to hear the creative solutions and practical ideas that emerged,鈥� said Elizabeth Bechard, senior policy analyst at , during a hosted by Capita鈥檚 Ankita Chachra.

Are you searching for inspiration? Here are seven encouraging highlights from the Action Plan:

1. The pandemic showed us how resourceful we can be. On the November 7 Hunt Institute webinar marking the Action Plan鈥檚 release, Diana Rauner, president of and co-chair of the Early Years Climate Action Task Force, admitted that the planet is stressed and the solutions are underfunded but reminded participants that throughout history, partnerships arise during crises.

For example, the Action Plan describes how, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana-based nonprofit launched the Rebuild Child Care Collaborative, which pooled private funding for child care centers. In 2021, after Hurricane Ida, the Agenda and the jointly distributed over $720,000 to 382 child care centers and family child care providers.

The global Covid pandemic offered plentiful examples of communities banding together; in Louisiana, Agenda for Children facilitated case management and legal advice to help child care centers secure Paycheck Protection Program loans.

2. The child care workforce is finding its voice. , just over 1 million people work in child care in America (far more, if you count all the unpaid labor), and this workforce is dedicated to protecting our nation鈥檚 children. At a luncheon discussion exploring the Action Plan held by Capita and the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., Melissa Rooker of the described child care workers as first responders, and the Action Plan spotlights , a California child care network with 13 locations that tracked the movements of children and families in the aftermath of the 2017 wildfires, linking them to emergency food and other resources.

鈥淒uring the climate-related disasters that we鈥檝e experienced over the past several years,鈥� North Bay鈥檚 Susan Gilmore said. 鈥淭he child care industry needs to be seen as essential, and like school districts, child care representatives should be included in the organizational structure of each county鈥檚 emergency operations center.鈥�

During the Hunt Institute webinar, Erica Phillips, executive director of the , said, 鈥淲hile our sector is incredibly diverse, we are here to be allies in the climate planning work.鈥�

3. The business community is engaged. The climate crisis that the experts have long predicted? It鈥檚 here. During the virtual launch, Angie Garling of the recalled a 106掳 F day in California鈥檚 Coachella Valley when the children were kept inside for their own safety.

As Antwanye Ford, president & CEO at Enlightened, Inc., and co-chair of the Early Years Climate Action Task Force, quipped at the Capita-Aspen luncheon, 鈥淟ong-term becomes now really fast.鈥�

The Action Plan singles out the Greater Seattle Child Care Business Coalition for recognizing the urgency; it supports child care providers by creating opportunities for them to learn about topics like employment law grants management. The coalition seeks greater investments from government and business and has amplified warnings about the impact of extreme heat.

Across the nation, the is incentivizing green energy solutions, and predict the private sector will undertake even more substantial climate investments of its own accord.

The Action Plan recommends the creation of climate-aware policies and programs for employees with young children, fostering partnerships between businesses and early years facilities to fund essential upgrades, as well as partnering with local communities to build climate-resilient green space and community infrastructure.

4. Government is taking action. While the climate dimensions of the Inflation Reduction Act have received more attention, it is far from the only effort worth noting. In a conversation with Capita鈥檚 Joe Waters, Rep. Jennifer McClellan of Virginia, outlined the benefits of the bipartisan , which would increase short-term child care access during pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. (Climate change adversely impacts pregnancy health directly and indirectly.)

Politics also follows public opinion, and sentiment toward climate action is increasing: feel they have a 鈥渕oral obligation鈥� to make the world a better place by addressing climate change not only for their own children and grandchildren but for all children to come. Many state and local governments are recognizing that steps to protect the youngest residents from climate catastrophe are necessary and possible.

At the state level, Action Plan recommendations include the creation of climate leadership roles and breaking down silos through collaborative structures. For example, California鈥檚 prioritizes the installation of energy-efficient electric appliances and retrofitting for disaster mitigation. At the local level, the Action Plan cites the work of and recommends 鈥渋ntegrating the perspectives of young children, their families and those who support them.鈥�

During the Hunt Institute webinar, Dr. Rauner demonstrated a line of questioning for conversations with local officials: 鈥淲hat if we looked at our development from the perspective of a smaller person?鈥�

5. Philanthropy is having an impact. U.S. foundations grant annually, and a of 188 foundation executives found that more than 60% are funding efforts to address climate change. (Still others are focused on equity, and during the Hunt Institute webinar, Elliot Haspel, senior fellow at Capita 鈥� and Early Learning Nation columnist 鈥� memorably referred to climate change as an inequity multiplier.)

As impressive as these figures are, there is clearly room to expand these investments and to target them toward efforts that benefit young children and families. The Action Plan鈥檚 recommendations for the philanthropic sector include funding work that connects early years and climate change; developing a regular national scorecard on the state of young children and climate change; and supporting communities in efforts that promote healthy development for young children in a changing climate.

6. Children are vulnerable, but they鈥檙e also resilient. The word “resilience” can be a double-edged sword, both complementing people from disinvested communities for their innate strengths and expecting them to bounce back from every hardship and disaster. The Action Plan uses the word 88 times over its 99 pages, referring to climate resilience as well as the children whose future depends on it.

At the Capita-Aspen luncheon, Robert Mayer, KABOOM鈥檚 associate director for Public Policy and Advocacy, made the comment that the most subsequent speakers quoted: 鈥淐hildren will be as adaptive as society allows them to be.鈥�

7. The Action Plan is just the start. As Capita and its partner organizations communicate the Plan鈥檚 findings and recommendations, the hope is that the dialogue will proliferate wherever decision makers, advocates and activists gather to envision the future 鈥� taking inspiration from those with lived experience. 鈥淧eople from disadvantaged communities are already showing the way,鈥� Haspel said at the Capita-Aspen luncheon.

There鈥檚 also a lot to learn about adaptation from indigenous communities. During the virtual launch, Alicia Mousseau, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, noted, 鈥淭ribal communities have always adapted to things that we鈥檝e never experienced before in our history.鈥�

is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of Course:

鈥淐limate Change Literature鈥�

What prompted the idea for the course?

After reading many fiction books that featured themes of climate change, I felt compelled to create a course that would allow students to do the same. The idea was to have students learn about our planetary crisis by exploring how it鈥檚 portrayed in literature.

At John Carroll University, students are required to take paired courses that are tethered together from two different departments. I approached a colleague who teaches a biology course about climate science to see if he wanted to link his course to mine. Students must co-enroll in both of our courses during the same semester. The combined courses give students both a scientific and literary view of climate change. In my colleague鈥檚 class, students learn about and the like. Then, in my class, they study how fiction writers and poets incorporate concerns about the effects of rising temperatures into their work.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

What materials does the course feature?

The major work of fiction we read is Barbara Kingsolver鈥檚 novel 鈥�,鈥� about a low-income family in Appalachia. Millions of monarch butterflies become confused by warming temperatures and accidentally overwinter on the family farm, setting off much conflict. We also read lots of poetry and short fiction with themes of the impacts of . We read some fiction by Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Tommy Orange, Olivia Clare, Jess Walter and more. Poets include Matthew Olzmann, Nickole Brown, Ross Gay, Dante Di Stefano and Craig Santos Perez.

What does the course explore?

By reading climate fiction and poetry, students learn how overreliance on fossil fuels overlaps with issues of , and . We explore narrative voice, structure, imagery, plot, dialogue, style and other textual concerns in creative works influenced by living in the 鈥� or the period, according to some scientists, when human activity began to significantly affect the planet鈥檚 climate and ecosystems. is thought by some climate change experts to have . Through classroom discussion, we share the collective experience of engaging with characters who navigate a threatened world.

To integrate the biology and English classes, the students鈥� final projects are pitches for a Hollywood movie that portrays a changed world due to planetary heating while also getting the science right. The assignment is harder than it sounds: Students must understand the harmful results of carbon emissions and craft a compelling story.

Why is this course relevant now?

Climate change is an existential crisis . Many students do not study Earth science in high school; their first, and possibly only, exposure to evidence-based climate change happens in college. Authors address consequences such as warming temperatures, ocean acidification, desertification and sea-level rise. Thus, literature has become an essential tool to construct meaning in an age of climate disruption.

What鈥檚 a critical lesson from the course?

Literature helps us feel the immediacy of what鈥檚 at stake in a climate-changed world. The storytelling in fiction and poetry teaches us much that scientific and policy reports, charts, graphs and forecasts cannot. While data can predict rising sea levels, for example, a short story such as shows us how it feels to live in a submerged town where residents鈥� feet are always wet. Climate researchers predict the increasing desertification of the American Southwest. Through readers experience what it looks like to see towns abandoned due to the lack of water, and golf courses where sand traps no longer exist because the entire course has turned to sand.

What will the course prepare students to do?

Analyzing fiction and poetry sharpens students鈥� critical interpretive skills and prepares them to think originally and creatively as they enter a workforce altered and threatened by climate change. For example, pre-health majors will see the impacts of climate change on the human body. Business majors will need to know how to operate when extreme weather and disrupted supply chains affect the bottom line.

Our two paired courses combine science and literature to equip students with expansive ways of asking questions about their role in the world.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

PROVIDENCE 鈥� With a large black SUV with AC on full blast standing by for when heat got too oppressive, five school food service workers were working underneath a blue tarp at the Bucklin Kitchen on Daboll Street when Claudia Morales approached.

Morales was there to pick up three boxed lunches for two of her children 鈥� a high school junior and senior 鈥� and one grandchild 鈥� a kindergartner, Thursday because the Providence Public School District (PPSD) closed 19 of its 37 schools due to excessive heat. Providence joined 19 other local education agencies that either closed or dismissed classes early due to the weather.

鈥淎t home, I wasn鈥檛 prepared,鈥� she said when asked why she came to the food site. 鈥淥ne of my kids goes to Classical and today was supposed to be her first day. She hasn鈥檛 even started yet.鈥�

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 mind the decision, I think [officials] made the right call,鈥� she continued. 鈥淚 think maybe they鈥檒l do it again tomorrow.鈥�

PPSD announced schools would be closed Thursday on Wednesday night due to concerns around the health and safety of students and staff.

鈥淭he Providence Public School District (PPSD) is committed to the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and families,鈥� said PPSD Public Information Officer Jay Wegimont in a statement Wednesday night. 鈥淲e understand the challenges that extreme heat conditions can bring, and we appreciate families鈥� cooperation and understanding.鈥�

The district 鈥渨ill continue to monitor the weather,鈥� according to its announcement. The National Weather Service has issued through 8 p.m. Friday, noting heat index values 鈥� what the temperature feels like when high humidity combines with high temperatures 鈥� of up to 98.

Pawtucket announced via Twitter Wednesday night that all schools would be closed Thursday.

鈥淒ue to the extreme heat forecast tomorrow, there will be no school Thursday, September 7, 2023,鈥� a Tweet from the Pawtucket School District said. 鈥�12 Month employees to report to work. Employees, any questions contact your immediate supervisor.鈥�

Meteorologist Bryce Wilson at the National Weather Service in Norton, Massachusetts, said temperatures in Providence could hit the mid-90s Thursday, but that鈥檚 not where the real danger lies.

鈥淭he big issue is it鈥檚 not just going to be hot,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be humid. We have dew points in the mid-70s.鈥�

鈥淲hen you have moisture in the air you can鈥檛 sweat and cool off,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why it鈥檚 more dangerous than a dry heat.鈥�

Ashley Cullinane, a spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Department of Education, said the weather has led to cancellations regionally.

鈥淭here have been reports of the heat impacting districts across New England, so it鈥檚 important to note that this issue impacts schools beyond Providence,鈥� Cullinane said in an email, 鈥渕any of which do not have properly electrical capacity to house cooling units and systems.鈥�

Closures and early dismissals across R.I.

Officials with the Rhode Island Department of Education listed the 19 other local education agencies which closed schools or ended classes early due to the heat and humidity. The list included: Blessed Sacrament School in Providence, LaSalle Academy in Providence, all schools in Pawtucket, the Met East Bay School in Newport, William M. Davies Career and Technical High School in Lincoln, and the Rhode Island Transition Academy at Roger Williams University.

Officials dismissed students early in: Barrington, Burrillville, Cranston, Coventry, Cumberland, East Greenwich, East Providence, Johnston, Scituate, Smithfield, West Warwick, and Woonsocket.

鈥淚 have visited several of our schools and have found that classrooms are certainly warm and buildings with classrooms on second floors are even warmer in temperature,鈥� Cumberland Superintendent Philip D. Thornton said in a message to families sent Wednesday night. 鈥淭o accommodate for the warm weather, administrators and teachers are making adjustments to the physical education classes, recess schedule and providing alternative teaching areas for students as needed.鈥�

鈥淲ater is easily accessible to everyone. However, even with these adjustments, the weather forecast for Thursday calls for even warmer temperatures.鈥�

Age of schools a factor in capital

It鈥檚 no secret that school buildings in Providence tend to be old and often lack air conditioning, . According to commissioned by PPSD, the average age of schools in Providence is about 70 years old.

鈥淲e know our facilities are old/outdated,鈥� said Maribeth Calabro, president of the Providence Teachers Union, in a text message. 鈥淲e also know how much money is required to upgrade, update and in some cases rebuild 21st century schools.鈥�

She said that a $235 million bond approved in November by voters would provide some of the necessary upgrades and 鈥渕ake it so we don鈥檛 have to close 19 schools.鈥� According to there are over $900 million worth of infrastructure deficiencies in Providence schools.

Given current conditions though, Calabro said the decision to call off school Thursday was the right one.

鈥淪tate and District leadership made the difficult but appropriate decision to close schools without air conditioning,鈥� she said. 鈥淒ue to the excessive heat, classrooms were unbearably hot and created unhealthy situations for students and staff.鈥�

Chanda Womack, the executive director of the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education, was more blunt in her assessment.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hot and the schools don鈥檛 have AC,鈥� Womack said via text. 鈥淸PPSD] Buildings are trash. It鈥檚 simple.鈥�

Providence Public Schools District School Committee Member Ty鈥橰elle Stephens said that he visited several schools Wednesday.

鈥淚 was definitely sweating in some of the schools I visited yesterday,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 definitely believe that a lot of our schools need to be upgraded and do not have air conditioning.鈥�

For Morales though, the fact that so many schools have no air conditioning makes her question district leaders鈥� priorities.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e not paying attention to the children,鈥� she said.

PPSD has been working on improvising buildings, promising to invest more than $50 million into facility repairs and improvements by 2030. Slightly more than 7%, about $31 million, of the department鈥檚 fiscal year 2024 budget is set to go toward school building maintenance costs.

Cullinane said that Providence schools also that aims to update the technology and functionality of school structures.

鈥淎fter opening just one new school in the last 14 years, Providence is slated to open three new and like-new schools this year under the intervention,鈥� she said. 鈥淧rojects are expected to receive an estimated 91% reimbursement by the State.鈥�

On top of the list for improvements is , which has around $151 million in deficiencies according to the Downes Report. The school may face demolition, refurbishment, or a combination of the two by 2025. Costs on that project 鈥� starting at $120 million 鈥� will be covered with money from the $235 million bond.

For Morales though, she said this is a learning opportunity, this time not so much for the students.

鈥淚 hope PPSD learns from it,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd maybe they鈥檒l fix the ACs.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .

Local officials continue to face difficult questions about their response. Why have the number and magnitude of wildfires on Maui increased so rapidly? Could more have been done to eliminate invasive grasses that are thought to increase wildfire susceptibility? Should the electric company have cut power on the morning of the fires due to the high winds? Why weren鈥檛 the community鈥檚 sirens, built originally to warn the community of tsunami danger, used to warn residents of the fire? There will plenty of blame to share.

The number of confirmed dead is now at 115 and is expected to climb, making it the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a hundred years. Meanwhile, at press time, 388 people are listed as missing. Hawaii governor Josh Green told the press that .

Those families whose lives were spared by the fires face other horrors. For many, their homes and all their possessions were destroyed in a matter of hours. Where will they sleep? Where will their children go to school? Who will care and educate their youngest children as they attempt to rebuild their lives and livelihoods? And by this week, as K-12 schools reopened, just how these children would recover from the trauma of returning to schools and child care centers with classmates and family members forever missing?

This is parenting in 2023. This is child care in the age of climate disasters. The tragedy in Maui raises a further question for not only our local, state, and government officials, but for all of us: With parents clearly unable to shield their children from the ever-expanding list of climate threats on their own, how can we rebuild our systems to promote young children鈥檚 safety, health and well-being?

More than 3,000 buildings were destroyed in the fires. According to national child care network Child Care Aware, that number includes four of the nine licensed child care centers in Lahaina. At least 150 child care slots were affected by the fires, according to PATCH, Hawaii鈥檚 child care referral network. PATCH began working immediately with local providers to create and publicize available slots, and to donate infant formula, diapers and financial resources to families and providers who need it.

PATCH鈥檚 Interim Executive Director Carol Wear said, 鈥淭he impact of the fires has caused considerable distress among both the staff and the children under their care. To address this, local organizations specializing in infant mental health have been offering support to some of the affected centers.鈥� PATCH is working with national partners who bring expertise and training when confronting such emergencies, and they鈥檝e found they are not alone. They are leaning on a variety of local and national allies for support.

Climate Disruption and Children

According to a recent report by Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, an open network of representatives from NGOs, UN agencies, governments and academic institutions, the disruptions caused by climate disasters can have long-lasting and devastating impacts on children, including their health, both physical and emotional, their access to nutritious food, their access to responsive caregiving, learning opportunities, and their safety and security.

The United Nations鈥� World Meteorological Organization has found a in the past fifty years. UNICEF reports that over one billion children on the planet are , including fires, typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes.

Elliot Haspel, director of Climate and Young Children at the think tank Capita, says early education, like many of our systems, is underprepared for the consequences of climate change. 鈥淏ut unlike some other systems,鈥� Haspel said, 鈥渆arly education is working with an acutely vulnerable population, a population that is essential to building a resilient and happy future.鈥�

Haspel points to FEMA and other interagency disaster response plans as part of the reason young children are particularly vulnerable. That lack of inclusion of early education systems is at least in part a result of how fragmented child care and early education are in general in the United States. 鈥淎lthough there are over 100,000 schools in the United States, they鈥檙e organized into districts and have a central office that an agency can coordinate with. Unfortunately, that鈥檚 not the case for the early years,鈥� said Haspel.

The millions of small, home-based child care centers and family child care providers across the U.S. are especially difficult to reach, meaning not only that they aren’t included in evacuation plans at the outset of a disaster, but may also not receive the critical resources they need to continue serving families during the recovery period or to sustain themselves beyond it.

Capita and the Aspen Institute co-convene a task force to draw attention to the relationship between climate and the early years of children鈥檚 lives. They recommend a strategy that mitigates climate change, adapts our current systems for our new climate realities, and prepares our systems for inevitable losses and damage that will result from them.

What kinds of changes might this result in, in practice? Experts have recommended numerous paths to act:

• focus on mitigation in communities of color, where extreme heat and pollutants are most impacting young children;
• adapt playgrounds and outdoor spaces to withstand climate changes, like providing shade in areas exposed to extreme heat;
• in the case of disaster, plan for what will happen to children when loss and damages occur, and for how to re-create stability for them as quickly as possible.

Moms Historically Have Led the Social Movements for Kids. Early Educators, too.

But accomplishing any of this will likely require a public groundswell to demand it. After all, despite majorities of Americans supporting federal investments in early education and child care, Congress has failed multiple times to renew pandemic-era funding for early learning and care even as we approach a funding cliff that could close 70,000 child care centers, and as the cost of child care is rising at double the rate of overall inflation. Our children are as vulnerable as they are in the face of climate change precisely because we have historically refused to invest in infrastructure they need.

Parents, especially moms, have forged some of the largest and most successful social movements in modern U.S. history, particularly by highlighting the threat to children鈥檚 lives. Since its formation in the 1970s, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has from the local to the federal levels targeting drinking and driving. Moms Demand Action has galvanized a national movement against gun violence and won an impressive number of gun-safety victories, particularly at the state level.

At the local level, the connection between climate change and children鈥檚 lives is increasingly being made by : Science Moms, EcoMadres, Moms Clean Air Force, Mothers Out Front, Sunrise Kids NYC. As one mother and activist told the New York Times, 鈥淚 want to be able to say to my kid, 鈥榃e鈥檙e trying to do something.鈥欌��

Native groups have long drawn connections between protecting the natural environment and protecting the youngest members of our society. With the , for instance, Mohawk women led research to measure pollutants in their water sources, pointing out that toxins in water would become toxins in breastmilk.

Early educators are also a potentially powerful voice in advancing this struggle, as they have become an increasingly vocal bloc in the . Of all the institutions that young children and their families interact with, it is most often early educators who take on an outsized responsibility for the overall well being of children outside their families, even in the absence of adequate funding and infrastructure.

One of the buildings destroyed in the Maui blaze was a groundbreaking Hawaiian language immersion preschool serving about two dozen Lahaina families. 驶Aha P奴nana Leo O Lahaina is part of a larger movement of native Hawaiian educators to preserve the language and culture by teaching children through traditional Hawaiian methods and in native Hawaiian language. According to the network of schools, P奴nana Leo means 鈥渘est of voices,鈥� a learning philosophy in which children are 鈥溾�榝ed鈥� solely their native language and culture much like the way young birds are cared for in their own nests.鈥�

驶Aha P奴nana Leo CEO Ka驶iulani Laeh膩 says that same philosophy is driving the center鈥檚 response to the disaster. They are focused first and foremost on nurturing the families they serve, including enrolling displaced families in one of their other locations on Maui and other islands, and raising funds to provide them any resources they may need.

驶Aha P奴nana Leo is also working to provide security and resources to their five displaced staff members. 鈥淵ou can imagine, our staff are incredibly specialized,鈥� said Laeh膩, 鈥渟o doing whatever we need to retain them is a top priority.鈥� Laeh膩 added that while some of their educators have been reassigned to teach at their other sites, others are still on the ground on Maui helping with the rescue effort and caring for children impacted by the disasters. Those educators are part of the 驶Aha P奴nana Leo 鈥渙hana,鈥� or family, just like the children they educate and those children鈥檚 families.

The extent of the human loss in Maui is sadly still coming into focus, as search and recovery efforts continue. But the destruction of Lahaina, and so many of its most vulnerable people, will undoubtedly be remembered for years to come as among the most devastating tragedies in U.S. history.

As a public we are only beginning to grapple with what this tragedy means about where we stand as a country and planet, marking the dangers of our present climate, and laying bare our immense unpreparedness for an inevitably growing list of weather-related disasters. The fires should also force us to reckon with just how truly vulnerable so many of our youngest children are, specifically in a warming world, not currently built for them or for their needs.

This is not an imaginary scenario 鈥� these lessons and activities are happening at real schools around the world. And the lessons their students are learning, both formal and informal, as they follow their own curiosity, are invaluable as they grow as stewards of our future. We can see it in how two schools, in particular, approach climate change.

set out to build the most sustainable school on the planet. Indonesia is an archipelago with 180 million people living in coastal regions. It faces the imminent threat of rising sea levels and is no stranger to weather-related disasters. Green School Bali is a much-needed inspiration for environmental education far beyond its borders. Students at this international school actively learn about sustainable agriculture, renewable energy systems and ecological conservation, applying fundamental literacies such as critical thinking and writing. They demonstrate what it means to be .

A continent away in Hungary, addresses similar concerns in a different way by focusing on alternatives to dangerous, unsustainable agricultural practices. The school opened a vegan cafeteria that supplies delicious, locally-sourced food for school lunches and the public. Students have a voice in the menus, are involved in the food planning and learn valuable lessons about supply, demand and food sources. By providing families and community members with tasty vegan food, the school encourages the community to lower its meat intake, thus decreasing the need for unsustainable farming practices. 

I saw this all first hand last year, during a 12-month transformational journey exploring innovative educational practices in 34 countries on six continents. I approached this exploration as a life-long educator and co-founder of , a diverse-by-design high school in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee. Here, students use in all of their classes to make education more meaningful, often in collaboration with nonprofits and researchers.

For my tour, I wanted to see what commonalities exist among innovative schools worldwide. I also wanted to see how world events like political shifts, war, youth movements, human migration and climate change affect teaching and learning.

As an educator committed to preparing students for an uncertain future in a swiftly evolving world, my main focus was learning how schools across the globe approach similar goals: namely, how they’re helping students become generous collaborators and original thinkers 鈥� all while mastering foundational knowledge and fundamental literacies. These guide teaching and learning at Crosstown High and in other innovative, student-centered . 

For more ideas on rethinking the high school experience, read The XQ Xtra 鈥� a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Student-Led Innovation Creates Sustainable Schools 

Around the world, schools embody the same learner outcomes we use at Crosstown and other XQ schools to prepare students for these immense challenges. 

鈥淐hange starts with an idea, an intention or a problem to be solved,鈥� said Green School Bali Principal Sal Gordon. School educators tasked their students with researching the greatest environmental impacts on their local school community. Through an extensive study of numerous factors, students identified automobile traffic on campus as a leading contributor. With the help of engineers, chemists and automotive experts, students developed a process to convert school buses from diesel to cooking oil for fuel, which they collected from local restaurants. 

Each week, students in the 鈥淕rease Police鈥� procure the oil from a 15-mile radius of the school for refinement and use as fuel, providing a greener alternative to school transportation. Through this kind of project-based learning and hands-on experiences, they gain a profound understanding of the interconnectedness between their actions and the environment. 

The school鈥檚 entire facility encourages this type of learning. Each open-air classroom is constructed of bamboo and thatch, with tables and chairs made locally from sustainable products. Students also manage their own lush gardens at each grade level that provide food for school lunches. They eat fish grown in the student-managed aquaponic system and eggs harvested from the fifth-grade chicken coop. 

In Hungary, REAL School Budapest Founder Barna Barath intentionally designed the vegan cafeteria to serve as a living example of the school鈥檚 purpose. In a traditional school system, a common purpose is to prepare students for postsecondary opportunities that provide individual prosperity. At REAL, the purpose is to live a purposeful and fulfilling life for collective prosperity. Students and parents invest in that vision for the betterment of the community. REAL鈥檚 educators are creating a community space and showing what it means to be learners for life and generous collaborators.

Connect Student-Directed Learning to Academic Standards

Educators at schools anywhere can prepare students for an uncertain future, specifically where that uncertainty relates to environmental change. A key takeaway from the two schools in Indonesia and Hungary is letting students take the lead in their learning. In each case, students investigated problems and found solutions, resulting in deep learning. There are many examples of schools doing similar work in the U.S. At Crosstown High, science teacher Nikki Wallace lets students take the lead by connecting them with local researchers through powerful community partnerships. 

We need to think big. Assigning simple projects around collecting plastic bottles or bags isn鈥檛 enough to move the needle on the environment and won鈥檛 truly engage kids. Even though Indonesia has specific concerns about rising sea levels, schools anywhere can 鈥� and should 鈥� engage students in learning about and studying the effects of droughts, heatwaves, floods and storms that result in crop failure and food scarcity. Here are a few steps to get started:

• Get students to think audaciously about solving local problems. What鈥檚 the big issue facing their neighborhood, town, county or state? How can they learn about it? Who can help them uncover solutions? For example: What is the condition of the local water source? What in the community is impacting local water? Who in the community can share expertise around this issue? 
• As they problem-solve, consider all connections to academic standards. How do research and problem-solving by students connect to the learning standards in your state? This is the crucial jumping-off point for connecting 鈥渁cademic鈥� knowledge to 鈥渞eal world鈥� solutions. At Crosstown High, we鈥檝e done an in-depth study of human migration involving people who immigrated to Memphis. This project closely relates to the standards covered in our history, geography, sociology and psychology courses. 
• Get outside the box. Keep asking, 鈥淲hy?鈥� and push your students to think bigger and broader before zeroing in on the small tasks. At Crosstown, our students conducted an in-depth project on how life could exist on Mars. This encompassed everything from food sources, water, breathable air, transportation and architecture. They used persuasive writing and research 鈥� touching practically every subject area.

Unlock Students鈥� Passion and Curiosity

Helping students find the urgency and passion in learning, and the joy of finding a solution, are key components to solving increasingly urgent local and global issues. But they鈥檙e also the ingredients we need to make learning, in general, more engaging and relevant to high school students. Our high schools can and should do a better job cultivating students鈥� natural passions and curiosities, helping them discover how their unique gifts, talents and interests help them meet the challenges of an uncertain future. Understanding their place in that future builds the confidence needed to be a change-maker.

Luckily, students are naturally forward-focused. They constantly think about what life will be like when they grow up. We can improve the high school experience by activating their natural curiosity and augmenting it with essential skills such as critical thinking, creative problem solving, information gathering and collaboration.

All of these skills are necessary for college, career and the real world. By combining passion, urgency, curiosity and essential knowledge and skills, our students can grow into the superheroes our planet needs to lead urgent and necessary change on the local, national and global stages. Schools around the world are setting examples, and we can, too. 

Want more ideas for making your high school more student-centered? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of 蜜桃影视.

The State of Montana鈥檚 from energy and mining projects violates the state constitution because it does not protect Montanans鈥� right to a clean and healthful environment and the state鈥檚 natural resources from unreasonable depletion, a judge ruled Monday in for 16 youth plaintiffs who sued the state.

Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley the young plaintiffs in her decision in the , striking down as unconstitutional the so-called 鈥渓imitation鈥� to the Montana Environmental Policy Act, which was this year, as well as another portion of law surrounding greenhouse gas emissions that was changed this past session.

Seeley the 2023 version of the MEPA limitation, passed via House Bill 971 the session, as well as a portion of Senate Bill 557, and the latter 鈥渞emoves the only preventative, equitable relief available to the public and MEPA litigants.鈥�

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

鈥淧laintiffs have a fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life support system,鈥� Seeley wrote in her decision.

The Held vs. Montana case was the first case challenging state and national climate and energy policies to make it to trial in the U.S., and is now the first in which the plaintiffs, 16 Montana youth now ages 5 to 22, were victorious.

Julia Olson, the chief legal counsel and executive director for Our Children鈥檚 Trust, the group behind the lawsuit, called Seeley鈥檚 decision precedent setting and 鈥渁 sweeping win鈥� for Montana, the youth plaintiffs, and the climate, and said more court victories would be coming.

鈥淭oday, for the first time in U.S. history, a court ruled on the merits of a case that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change laws, and disproportionately imperil young people,鈥� Olson said.

鈥淭he Honorable Judge Kathy Seeley declared Montana鈥檚 fossil fuel-promoting laws unconstitutional and enjoined their implementation. As fires rage in the West, fueled by fossil fuel pollution, today鈥檚 ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation鈥檚 effort to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate change.鈥�

In statements provided by their attorneys, two of the plaintiffs, Kian Tanner and Eva Lighthiser, said they were elated by the judge鈥檚 decision.

鈥淔rankly, the elation and joy in my heart is overwhelming in the best way,鈥� Tanner said. 鈥淲e set the precedent not only for the United States, but for the world.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 so speechless right now. I鈥檓 really just excited and elated and thrilled. I cannot believe the ruling. I鈥檓 just so relieved. I feel so grateful to have worked with every single person involved in this,鈥� Lighthiser said.

Seeley wrote in her that the MEPA limitation, which prohibits the state from considering greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts when deciding whether to approve permits for energy and mining projects, violated Montanans鈥� rights under the 1972 state constitution.

that they have a right to a clean and healthful environment and that each Montanan 鈥渟hall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.鈥�

Seeley also wrote that the state constitution commands the legislature to 鈥減rovide for the administration and enforcement鈥� to meet the state鈥檚 obligation to maintain and improve the environment and provide remedies to prevent its unreasonable depletion and degradation.

鈥淢ontana鈥檚 climate, environment, and natural resources are unconstitutionally degraded and depleted due to the current atmospheric concentration of GHGs and climate change,鈥� Seeley wrote.

She said that MEPA makes clear the state should use 鈥渁ll practicable means鈥� to fulfill those constitutional responsibilities, and that the law鈥檚 limitation, in place since 2011 and this session in response to a Yellowstone County judge鈥檚 order regarding emissions at a plant in Laurel, is failing to meet those constitutional duties.

Seeley wrote, rather, that the MEPA limitation 鈥渃onflicts with the very purpose of MEPA鈥� in trying to meet those obligations.

鈥淏y prohibiting consideration of climate change, (green house gas) emissions, and how additional GHG emissions will contribute to climate change or be consistent with the Montana Constitution, the MEPA Limitation violates Plaintiffs鈥� right to a clean and healthful environment and is facially unconstitutional,鈥� Seeley wrote in her order.

Further, she said, the state did not put forward any evidence there was a compelling governmental interest in having the limitation in place, and Seeley noted there was undisputed testimony that the state could evaluate greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts, as well as consider switching more energy sources to renewable energy.

She also found a section of law this year through Senate Bill 557 to be unconstitutional. That new portion of law said that a permit approved by a Montana agency that did not include a greenhouse gas emissions evaluation could not be vacated, voided, or delayed unless Congress started regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.

Both that clause of and were created by the Republican supermajority to Judge Michael Moses鈥� that a NorthWestern Energy power generating station in Laurel could not proceed because the Department of Environmental Quality had failed to consider emissions impacts from the plant. He later after the legislature鈥檚 moves as the state appealed the ruling to the Montana Supreme Court.

Seeley wrote the newly amended law is unconstitutional 鈥渂ecause it eliminates MEPA litigants鈥� remedies that prevent irreversible degradation of the environment, and it fails to further a compelling state interest.鈥�

Seeley wrote that the state鈥檚 authorization of fossil fuel activities without analyzing emissions or climate impacts result in emissions that have caused, and will continue to perpetuate  human-caused climate change, and that the state has the authority to alleviate and avoid those climate impacts.

Seeley said the plaintiffs had proven injury because of the state鈥檚 failure to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and noted outright that 鈥渆very additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs鈥� injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.鈥�

She wrote that their injuries would only get worse and become irreversible 鈥渨ithout science-based actions鈥� to address climate change, that the plaintiffs had proven children are irreversibly harmed by pollution, and that they would continue to suffer injuries 鈥渄ue to the State鈥檚 statutorily mandated disregard of climate change in the MEPA limitations, and due to SB 557鈥檚 removal of MEPA鈥檚 preventative equitable remedies.鈥�

Seeley also wrote that if the state was allowed to consider GHG emissions and climate change during MEPA reviews, those would provide the state with 鈥渃lear information鈥� it needs to make science-based decisions within the framework of the state constitution and deny permits when they do not conform with those constitutional requirements.

Roger Sullivan, a Kalispell-based attorney who worked for the plaintiffs, said Seeley鈥檚 order was 鈥渁 landmark decision establishing enforceable principles of intergenerational justice. Barbara Chillcott, senior attorney at the Helena-based Western Environmental Law Center, said it was 鈥渋ncredibly gratifying鈥� to learn the judge鈥檚 decision.

鈥淭his decision sets important precedent for other constitutional climate cases in the U.S., and, most importantly, gives these youth plaintiffs some hope for a better future,鈥� Chillcott said.

The case was originally filed in March 2020, when the plaintiffs were ages 2 to 18. The original version challenged the MEPA limitation as well as the state energy policy 鈥� both of which were repealed or modified this past legislative session in response to the lawsuit and the ruling from Moses and Yellowstone County.

After by the state to failed, Seeley heard in June from 12 of the 16 plaintiffs and how their lives, leisure, health, and cultural traditions, among other things, were being by human-caused climate change. In addition to questions over MEPA and other policies, they had that 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide should be a stated standard for the state, though the judge鈥檚 order did not go that far.

The plaintiffs called 10 expert witnesses, including a Nobel Prize-winning from Montana, other , a renewable energy specialist, a state , a child psychologist, and Native experts who told the court about why the climate was warming, Montana鈥檚 outsized contributions to GHG emissions, how easily Montana could move toward using more renewable resources, and how climate change affects the brains and bodies of children.

The state called the director of the Department of Environmental Quality, one of its division directors, and just one of its three expert witnesses to the stand on the sixth day of the trial before resting its case. It did not call to the stand its climate or child psychology experts, but the three expert witnesses in total billed the state nearly $95,000,

Seeley wrote in her order Monday that the testimony of the state鈥檚 lone expert witness, Terry Anderson, 鈥渨as not well-supported, contained errors, and was not given weight by the Court.鈥�

Much of surrounded their stance that MEPA was procedural and not directive, that the permitting statutes are what speak to the constitutional environmental provisions, and that Montana鈥檚 greenhouse gas emissions only make up a tiny slice of global emissions and could not have an outsized effect on global greenhouse gas values.

DEQ Director Chris Dorrington made some of these claims during his testimony, and also told the court he 鈥渨as not deeply familiar鈥� with the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports were the basis of much of the plaintiffs鈥� climate experts鈥� testimony.

The state鈥檚 attorneys had also hoped that the legislature鈥檚 changes to the MEPA limitation and environmental impact statement law nullified the plaintiffs鈥� original claims, but Seeley only agreed to dismiss the part of the case involving the repealed state energy policy ahead of the trial.

A spokesperson for the Governor鈥檚 Office said the office was reviewing the decision and 鈥渆valuating next steps.鈥� The Attorney General鈥檚 Office declined to comment to the Daily Montanan but pointed to a statement provided to a news talk radio station.

In a statement the Attorney General鈥檚 Office provided to , spokesperson Emily Flower said the state would appeal the ruling, calling it 鈥渁bsurd鈥� and saying the trial was 鈥渁 week-long taxpayer-funded publicity stunt that was supposed to be a trial.鈥�

鈥淢ontanans can鈥檛 be blamed for changing the climate 鈥� even the plaintiffs鈥� expert witnesses agreed that our state has no impact on the global climate. Their same legal theory has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states,鈥� Flower said. 鈥淚t should have been here as well, but they found an ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward and earn herself a spot in their next documentary.鈥�

Rebecca Harbage, the public policy director for DEQ, said in a statement on behalf of the department: 鈥淒EQ鈥檚 mission is a to champion a healthy environment for a thriving Montana, and we take that mission seriously. We are currently reviewing the decision.鈥�

Region 8 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator K.C. Becker called Seeley鈥檚 ruling 鈥渁 landmark moment鈥� in young people鈥檚 efforts to protect the earth for future generations.

鈥淓very day the youth in Montana and across their world are watching the impacts of climate change fil their social media feeds as they witness the increased frequency of wildfires and flooding,鈥� Becker said in a statement. 鈥淣o longer are young people demanding action on the climate crisis from the sidelines 鈥� they are successfully advocating for it themselves. They are channeling their feelings of concern and frustration into climate activism. 鈥� This decision today sets a precedent for intergenerational accountability and environmental justice, ensuring that the decisions made today positively impact the well-being of tomorrow鈥檚 generations.鈥�

Joanie Kresich, the chair of conservation and agriculture organization Northern Plains Resource Council, said in a statement the group, which has held meetings about the Laurel generating station emissions, said it would be watching how the ruling affects other energy projects in Montana that burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gasses.

鈥淲e will be watching closely to see how this groundbreaking ruling affects prior judicial orders requiring the state of Montana to consider the 23 million tons of climate pollution that NorthWestern Energy鈥檚 methane-fired power plant would emit if completed in Laurel,鈥� Kresich said. 鈥淭his ruling makes it clear that the future prosperity and health of our youth must be considered in all of Montana鈥檚 energy decisions.鈥�

Another group, Montana Conservation Voters, said the ruling was a win for Montanans and affirmed the state鈥檚 constitutional protections.

鈥淚nstead of passing laws that limit our ability to regulate pollution, the state now must consider how its policies affect the health and wellbeing of its citizens and environment,鈥� MCV Executive Director Whitney Tawney said. 鈥淭he ruling is also a reminder of the importance of Montana鈥檚 constitution, and we applaud the brave young Montanans who stood up to protect the rights and freedoms promised to everyone in this state.鈥�

, an attorney with Our Children鈥檚 Trust told the Daily Montanan it intended to seek attorneys鈥� fees and costs should Seeley side with the plaintiffs.

Our Children鈥檚 Trust also has a similar case in Hawaii set to go to trial next summer, a federal case that has been allowed to proceed, and other pending cases in Utah and Virginia.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com. Follow Daily Montanan on and .

When wildfires and smoke swept through Oregon in 2020, Lyra Johnson鈥檚 family made plans to evacuate their home near Portland. Johnson, then 14, was told she might have to quickly learn to drive 鈥� despite not having a license 鈥� in order to get her grandmother to safety.

Thankfully, the danger passed before Johnson was forced to take the wheel, but she came face-to-face with the realities of climate change. Johnson, now 17 and a senior at Lake Oswego High School, was among the student leaders who urged Oregon lawmakers this year to require climate change education across all grade levels in Oregon schools.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to integrate that when you鈥檙e young, so you have that knowledge and feel like you can make a difference, rather than having it thrown on you and feel like the world鈥檚 ending,鈥� she said.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

Johnson serves as president of her school鈥檚 Green Team, a student sustainability group, and helped establish a composting program this year to reduce waste.

鈥淚t gave me a lot of hope, and it鈥檚 important to let students have that kind of hands-on experience,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e actually doing something and seeing progress, it can diminish a lot of that anxiety. Kids should be able to have that experience wherever they are.鈥�

The Oregon bill did not advance this session, but New Jersey last school year became the first state to incorporate climate change lessons into its education standards for kindergarten through 12th grade. Connecticut will be the second state to do so, starting next month.

Several other states are considering similar measures, while some have provided funding for climate learning opportunities. Most states have adopted standards that include climate change, but education experts say the subject is taught spottily and is usually limited to science classes. Some educators say there鈥檚 growing recognition that climate change demands a more comprehensive approach.

鈥淭oday鈥檚 students are tomorrow鈥檚 consumers, workers and voters,鈥� said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit. 鈥淚ncreasingly, they鈥檙e going to be faced with the need to make decisions about issues related to climate change.鈥�

Efforts to require climate change learning have mostly been proposed in progressive-leaning states. Some observers have questioned whether efforts to set learning standards via legislation could clash with the typical multiyear process overseen by state boards of education.

Meanwhile, leaders in some conservative states say mainstream climate science is an attack on the fossil fuel industry, and some are pushing schools to teach 鈥渂oth sides.鈥�

鈥淲hat I think is controversial is different views that exist out there about the extent of the climate change and the solutions to try to alter climate change,鈥� Ohio state Rep. Jerry Cirino, a Republican, Energy News Network.

The Oregon bill Johnson and others supported would have directed school districts to teach climate change with a focus on local impacts and solutions. Backers said lawmakers were generally supportive but wanted to see a more specific plan with guidance and resources to help schools to meet the new directive. The bill did not get a vote in committee, but supporters hope a new draft will pass in the next legislative session.

Breck Foster, one of Johnson鈥檚 teachers, serves as a board member for Oregon Green Schools, a nonprofit focused on climate education and sustainability. She鈥檚 found ways to incorporate climate learning into her social studies and Spanish classes.

鈥淜ids understand the gloom and doom, and there鈥檚 a lot of fatalism in their comments, but they don鈥檛 have a lot of the facts,鈥� said Foster, who also serves on the steering committee of Oregon Educators for Climate Education, a group that pushed for the bill. 鈥淚t was very enlightening to them to connect it to the idea of policies that are being implemented and goals that are being set.鈥�

New Jersey goes first

New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy led the push for the state鈥檚 new standards, which were adopted in 2020 by the state Board of Education. She said kids already see the effects of climate change, citing the wildfires in Canada earlier this month that blanketed the Northeast in smoke.

鈥淥ur children are seeing this as much as we are,鈥� she said in an interview with Stateline. 鈥淭o put our heads in the sand and pretend that the sky is not orange 鈥� they understand that.鈥�

New Jersey requires schools to incorporate climate change lessons into almost all subject areas, not just science class, because 鈥渟tudents have different ways of learning and every student has a favorite class,鈥� Murphy said.

To help schools meet the new guidelines, the state has created lesson plans and professional development for teachers, and is offering millions of dollars in grants to support hands-on learning. The state established those resources in partnership with groups such as Sustainable Jersey, a nonprofit network that certifies municipalities and schools on sustainability standards.

Those tools, said Randall Solomon, Sustainable Jersey鈥檚 executive director, were just as important as the standards themselves.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just wave a magic wand and expect 150,000 teachers and 2,500 schools to coordinate to teach climate change,鈥� he said. 鈥淭o really enable them to do it well requires the development of resources and tools, training and a way to track progress.鈥�

Next month, Connecticut schools also will be required to teach climate change to all grade levels, following the enactment of a state law last legislative session.

鈥淓very single kid I talk to and work with, this is what鈥檚 No. 1 on their minds, this is the existential crisis of their lifetimes,鈥� said state Rep. Christine Palm, a Democrat who sponsored the measure, which was tucked into a larger budget bill.

Including solutions

Several other states, including California, Massachusetts and New York, are considering bills that would require more climate change learning in public schools.

鈥淭his is a very important topic, and I want to make sure this is happening throughout the state and not only in some regions,鈥� said Massachusetts state Rep. Danillo Sena, a Democrat who has sponsored a bill to include climate change in state learning standards.

Sena said he is hopeful that the bill will receive a hearing this year.

Other states, including Maine and Washington, have provided funding to support professional development and training opportunities for educators on climate issues.

The Center for Green Schools, a project of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council that
promotes and certifies sustainable buildings, released a last week on the importance of climate change education.

Anisa Heming, the center鈥檚 director, noted that many youth leaders have become powerful advocates on climate change, and many of today鈥檚 students will need to fill jobs in emerging fields such as clean energy.

鈥淜ids have a tendency to disengage if they don鈥檛 have a sense that there are solutions, that they have some power in the situation and the adults around them are acting,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e have to arm them with the solutions, and then we have to act ourselves so they can see that those solutions are serious.鈥�

Climate skeptics

Leaders in some states, though, want to push climate change education in another direction. Cirino, the Ohio lawmaker, has proposed a bill that would 鈥渁llow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions鈥� on issues like climate change.

Cirino did not respond to a Stateline request for comment.

And in Texas, the state Board of Education directed schools earlier this year to provide textbooks that portray 鈥減ositive鈥� aspects of fossil fuels and suggest rising temperatures are caused by natural cycles, Scientific American . Board member Patricia Hardy, who drafted the rules, told the publication that fossil fuels help fund Texas schools and said teachers shouldn鈥檛 鈥渏ust be presenting one side.鈥�

Hardy did not respond to a request for comment.

Twenty states follow Next Generation Science Standards developed by a consortium of states and education groups, which do address climate change, most often in science classes. Another 24 states have enacted similar standards of their own. But the six outlier states include Florida and Texas, with massive amounts of students.

Branch, with the science education group, said the standards are taught inconsistently, often because teachers themselves have not had courses on climate change. That leaves most students well short of the comprehensive climate change education now required in New Jersey.

Leaders in New Jersey say their first school year under the new requirements has been a success, though some teachers aren鈥檛 yet totally comfortable. They hope the state鈥檚 standards, along with the resources it鈥檚 drafted to help schools adapt, can provide a template for others.

鈥淚 am desperate to get other states to join us,鈥� said Murphy, New Jersey鈥檚 first lady. 鈥淚t鈥檚 great that the next generation of New Jersey students are going to own this space, but we鈥檙e not going to solve climate change on our own.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

鈥淲e know that physical activity is a foundation for children鈥檚 health,鈥� says Dr. Andrew Koepp, a researcher with the University of Texas Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. 鈥淧hysical activity promotes bone, muscle and heart health. Most medical organizations recommend that children ages 3 to 5 be involved in some non-sedentary activity for about three hours throughout the day.

鈥淎t the same time, we know with climate change we鈥檙e expecting more hot days and that will impact children鈥檚 activity levels.鈥�

Koepp led a study to help determine just how great that impact might be 鈥� the first study of its kind on preschoolers.

鈥淲e knew there had been some studies on adults and older children about how heat impacts their physical activity outside,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut we weren鈥檛 finding any studies that were specific for preschoolers. That鈥檚 important because young children are a sensitive group 鈥� much more vulnerable to the heat than adults because their bodies are not as efficient at releasing heat.鈥�

The paper, 鈥�,鈥� was published in the May 2023 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics. The study took place over two weeks in April 2022 with 47 children aged 3 to 6 attending the university-based laboratory preschool in Austin, Texas. The playground is partially shaded, and researchers monitored air temperature and relative humidity data hourly. The preschoolers, a mix of male and female, Asian, Hispanic, White and 鈥渙ther race or ethnicity,鈥� were outfitted with a hip-worn device like a very precise junior Fitbit to measure their physical activity. The ambient temperatures during their outdoor play ranged from 72 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

On days with higher temperatures, the children engaged in more sedentary behavior and less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. On days when the ambient temperature was in the lower range, the children ran around, climbed, or played games 27 percent of the time. When the temps reached into the 90s, the children were only active 21 percent of the time.

Though the study is a small one, the researchers are repeating the experiment at different times of the year at other preschools in the Austin area to further develop the data. The results are important for several reasons, Koepp says, not least because they show the difference having shaded playgrounds can make.

In led by one of Koepp鈥檚 co-authors, Dr. Kevin Lanza of the Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at The University of Texas Health Science Center, researchers noted as much as a 10-degree difference between the shaded and unshaded parts of playgrounds. On a 90 degree day, this is the difference between 鈥渆xtreme caution鈥� and 鈥渄anger鈥� levels for risk of heat illness, according to the .

鈥淭his underscores that the built environment can have a really big impact on the temperature in the city,鈥� Koepp says. In Koepp鈥檚 and Lanza鈥檚 studies, preschoolers had the option (which they exercised) of heading for the shade, situating themselves under big trees when it was really hot. For millions of U.S. children, that is not an option.

According to , a map of tree cover in the U.S. is often a map of income and race. Due to decades of discriminatory policies such as redlining, trees, with their capacity to clean and cool the air, are often sparse in neighborhoods with people of color and low-income families. Low-income and socially marginalized populations are also more at risk because they have less access to climate-controlled housing.

In urban heat islands created by extensive concrete and pavement with few trees and green spaces, daytime temperatures can be as much as 7 degrees higher than temperatures in outlying areas. In cities where the humidity is high, vegetation reduced, with buildings denser and the population greater, temperatures can climb even higher 鈥� up to a scorching 20 or more degrees hotter in the urban core of some of the largest cities in the U.S.

Heat Hits Some Kids Harder

The children in Koepp鈥檚 study had other advantages besides trees on their playground.

鈥淭he group of kids who participated in our study came from relatively affluent families in the area,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he center has a lot of green outdoor space and the children in the sample were healthy. They had BMIs that were in the normal range, and none had asthma.

鈥淚t鈥檚 remarkable that we see this pattern of findings of the children being less active on hot days among these totally healthy kids. Children who are heavier are going to heat up faster, and we may see stronger findings in children with other health concerns.鈥�

Children with asthma, which disproportionately , are especially sensitive to heat, which can trigger an attack and irritate already narrowed airways. Though preschool children are unlikely to develop Type 2 diabetes, children as young as 10 are now being diagnosed with the disease, which puts them at particular risk from the heat. , complications related to diabetes can make it tougher for the body to cool itself, leading to heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Heat may be one of the major human-rights issues of the coming decades. According to Frederica Perera in “Children鈥檚 Health and the Peril of Climate Change,” without rapid global action to reduce global emissions, children born in 2020 will experience two to seven times more extreme heatwaves on average in their lifetimes than people born in 1960.

While we can鈥檛 immediately turn around the forces driving climate change we can work to mitigate as much heat in children鈥檚 environments as possible. In addition to planting trees, schools, communities and urban planners can take other steps to relieve the heat, particularly for the youngest and most vulnerable residents.

Koepp and his co-researchers suggest that something as simple as providing water tables, sprinklers and hoses can help children stay cooler. Misters and fans can help, as can sending the children out to play during the coolest times of the day.

Koepp says their hope is that the research they鈥檙e doing into how heat affects small children, and the difference sufficient shade can make will be of use not only to schools but also to public health officials, urban planners and others looking to design children鈥檚 spaces.

鈥淐limate change is happening,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd we have to learn to live with it.鈥� That doesn鈥檛 mean that children will have to live indoors, he says, but it will take diligence and thoughtful planning to make certain they can safely get the exercise they need to grow up strong and healthy.

The report, from the Low Income Investment Fund, is titled, 鈥�.鈥� With a level of sophistication I have never before seen applied to early childhood settings when it comes to environmental issues, the authors connected New York City鈥檚 robust child care licensing data with projected risks of floods and sea level rise. They conclude:

Mapping state child care licensing data in the context of projected long-term sea-level rise and stormwater flood scenarios suggests that 1,638 licensed FCC programs caring for 22,702 children in New York City face immediate risk of flood and water damage. By 2080, a flood mirroring what occurred in 2021, as a result of Hurricane Ida, would put nearly 80% of licensed FCCs at risk.

Family child care programs in NYC are of particular concern because so many include or primarily use basement spaces as part of their physical layout. To see how generalizable these results are to cities and states without heavy basement usage, I called up one of the report鈥檚 authors, Joe Fretwell.

Fretwell acknowledged that in 鈥渢he Northeast corridor where there is a lot of denser housing and a lot of basements, there are unique risks to that area鈥� due to the proliferation of basements used for home-based business. Yet, he added, 鈥淭hat being said, there is a lot of generalizability. There is a huge amount of housing and infrastructure in this country that has not been maintained, particularly in the face of climate change. Housing in this country is generally not ready to withstand worsening weather.鈥� This is a particular concern for family child care providers, who operate on exceptionally tight financial margins and often have little ability to keep up with needed maintenance, much less invest in climate-resilient upgrades.

It should be clear by now that the operability of child care facilities, whether in-home programs or centers, is entwined with broader questions of the future of child care. Hurricanes like Harvey and Ian , while heat waves can easily and force extended closures. What鈥檚 more, better facilities will not only have more adaptive capacity, they will be healthier, safer and better support the thriving of staff and children. As Fretwell explains:

鈥淪ometimes infrastructure gets pitted against workforce issues, but we see those things as completely aligned — particularly thinking about programs that serve low-income children and rely heavily on public subsidy. Calls by the sector as a whole to increase reimbursement rates, to increase public funding for child care, those things are directly related obviously to the sector鈥檚 ability to pay educators more and provide high-quality programs, but also in the individual bottom line of programs and their ability to operate like a normal small business and take on a loan if they need to, which is not possible for most child care programs right now.鈥�

(Family child care providers especially can too often fall through the cracks when it comes to receiving financial support, as they tend to not be nonprofits yet to also be more informal businesses that may lack a business banking account and other mechanisms. These challenges cropped up painfully when it came to family child care programs during the height of the pandemic.)

Beyond loans, child care providers are in desperate need of public dollars to finance facility upgrades. Even modest investments can make a big difference. As an example of what climate-resilience upgrades can look like, the report gives the example of Yolanda Miguel, who owns a family child care program in Brooklyn. Miguel鈥檚 basement flooded badly during Hurricane Ida due to the slope of the backyard and cracks in an outdoor staircase. Thanks to a $63,600 grant from LIIF, 鈥淵olanda has been able to repair the backyard play space and re-open her program with new equipment. She renovated her back deck, ground level and outdoor stairs, making it safer for the children, while also mitigating future water seepage into the basement.鈥�

Making capital funding readily available to child care programs, including family child care homes, is one of the concrete recommendations the report offers. While the recommendations are technically focused on New York City, many are widely applicable. These include:

• Offer technical assistance to providers to ensure that any public, philanthropic or private facilities financing is used for projects that make programs more prepared for disasters.
• Use data to prioritize programs and areas that face compounding racial, socioeconomic and climate disparities for facilities funding.
• Allocate funding from various federal, state and local environmental/climate-related legislation for child care facilities.
• Incorporate child care facilities into city/county flood mitigation plans.
• Make care infrastructure and young children a priority in broad city/county resilience planning.

Climate change and child care can feel like disparate issues. Spending a few minutes sitting with LIIF鈥檚 report and interactive maps will disabuse you of that notion. We cannot solve the child care crisis without considering the implications of climate change, and given the crucial contributions of child care to both child development and family flourishing, we cannot effectively respond to a chaotic climate without investing in the early years.

The need to act is urgent. In many ways the LIIF study was a low-end estimate of the threat. When I asked Fretwell what surprised him the most in their results, he replied, 鈥渢he sheer magnitude of risk to the sector was really eye-opening,鈥� adding that 鈥淣ew York City has released three projections [for potential levels of water deluge in coming decades] 鈥� and the worst-case scenario has already happened.鈥� (This was during the storm system that culminated in the remnant of Hurricane Ida in 2021鈥� at one point, Central Park was taking on more than three inches of rain an hour.)

According to Joe Waters, co-founder and CEO of , 鈥淒r. Perera鈥檚 work helps us to see more clearly that dangerous planetary change is the most pressing global threat there is to healthy human development in the earliest years of life. Mitigating climate change, adapting to its unavoidable impacts, and building the resilience of societies by building the resilience of our young children is the human development challenge of this century.鈥�

I spoke to Dr. Perera about her work, the dire challenges ahead and her reasons for cautious optimism.

Swartz: What makes children more susceptible to air pollution and climate change?

Perera: Both factors are dangerous, and together, even more so. Take for example, mothers exposed to heat and air pollution during pregnancy. Their babies have a much higher risk of being born too soon. The same synergistic effect can be seen with asthma hospitalizations. We’ve just started to learn about the ways that these two fossil fuel-derived threats combine to increase risk.

We’re seeing 50 million children forced from their homes due to climate-related events. That鈥檚 three times more than from armed conflicts and violence. Think of the disastrous floods in Pakistan last year that displaced nearly 8 million people.

Children are not just little adults. There are many biological reasons for their vulnerability. It鈥檚 why we need to protect their development, from the time they’re in utero through their early years and even into adolescence.

What do you wish more people understood about the crisis we face?

Children bear the brunt of the damage but lack the economic and political levers to force action, and not enough adults have been advocating for them. It should be shocking that the United States never ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Other countries have formally recognized the fundamental rights of children to demand that their governments reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

How has your personal journey shaped your climate awareness?

As a child, I was always interested in the environment because I had the opportunity to live in different ecosystems. I started off in the suburbs and then moved to a farm in Vermont, where I realized how very dependent we were on natural systems and how interconnected we are, which I think many urban children don’t know. They don’t have access to nature in the way that I would hope they would.

As a researcher, I started off looking at a class of environmental carcinogens that come from fossil fuel burning, generally called (PAH). We identified DNA damage from these pollutants as a risk marker for cancer. And to my surprise and dismay, we were seeing the same DNA damage in newborns and young children. And I thought, well, this is really something we need to look at, in terms of health effects in children, not just cancer but other effects. In our research over the years we have shown that prenatal PAH exposure is harmful to the developing brain and other organs.

What actions do you recommend for parents, educators and advocates?

First, we all need to be armed with the facts, because there’s quite a lot of confusion and misinformation. But 99% of scientists will agree with the data in my book. We can use these facts and narratives in the book to educate and engage others.

Second, we can take action both as citizens and voters to make sure that we’re represented by people who understand the science and take this problem seriously and will act to protect the most vulnerable. And when I say most 鈥榲ulnerable,鈥� I’m referring to children as a group, but also to children in communities of color who are even more vulnerable because they don’t have the same supports that more privileged children have against these threats. They live in 鈥榰rban heat islands鈥� or coastal areas most vulnerable to flooding and storms.

Third, we can lead by example. In the home, we can do a lot to conserve energy. Not so much heat in the winter, not so much air conditioning in the summer. Install solar panels on your own roof or convince your landlord if necessary. It’s been found that if homeowners start putting solar panels on their roofs, then others in their neighborhood will follow. The same goes for things like using mass transit instead of driving cars. We can shift to diets that are less climate intensive. I’m thinking of plant-based meals and avoiding waste. We now waste 30% of the food that is raised. That’s pretty shocking, isn’t it? Neighborhood gardens are a wonderful way to reduce the carbon footprint.

The heavy lift does have to be done by government. We need strong international action. As adults, we can support those initiatives and make sure that we have the right representation.

What gives you hope?

We achieve a lot when we reduce and eventually eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel. The is an encouraging example of policymaking, in this case removing coal-burning electricity generating units from 12 eastern states, replacing them with cleaner fuel. The result was much cleaner air and improved child health. You can see other examples internationally in London, in Copenhagen and even in China, with the shutdown of a single coal plant.  Hopefully we鈥檒l see more good news stories as results from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Groups like , and  have been tremendously effective. is an example of an attempt of young people to force the government to take action on climate change. I joined several other authors on a paper that supported their demands in terms of the science on the harmful effects of climate change on the young.

My book鈥檚 chapter on power and voice was one of the most fun to write because I was able to talk about the youth but also the fearless grandmothers who have joined them. Religious leaders of various denominations have come on board and basically are saying we must be stewards, we must protect the most vulnerable and we must act.

I have retained optimism. I refuse to believe that we will not be able to take the action we need to avoid the worst catastrophe. At least our children will have a chance of a future that will be viable for them. And so I’m not giving up.

Frederica Perera is an ideal guide of the crisis we鈥檝e made. Founder of the Center for Children’s Environmental Health at Columbia University, she is a pioneer in molecular epidemiology and research on environmental causes of cancer and developmental disorders. Her new book Children’s Health and The Peril of Climate Change describes the full scope of the intergenerational injustice and harm of climate change and air pollution to young and developing bodies.

With authority and urgency, Perera articulates the sheer magnitude of the environmental impacts of fossil fuel and the health burden inflicted on children around the world. She makes technical terms and processes digestible, and balances expert takes with significant scientific research.

According to UNICEF, almost every child is exposed to at least one climate and environmental hazard, shock or stress. Half the world鈥檚 children live in countries at extremely high risk of water scarcity, flooding, cyclones, pollution, heatwaves and other effects of climate change.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 40% of the burden of environmentally related disease and more than 88% of the current load of climate change is borne by children under five years of age. Today, approximately 2 billion children in the world breathe toxic air at levels exceeding the guidelines set by WHO. 鈥淭he forces hurling us toward climate disaster,鈥� she writes, 鈥渁re our built-in economic dependence on fossil fuel and our passivity due to ignorance, denial, or despair.鈥�

As Perera explains, the speed of organ development in fetuses, infants and children makes them especially susceptible to airborne toxins. 鈥淭he elaborately choreographed processes involved in early development,鈥� she writes, 鈥渁re exquisitely vulnerable to disruption by toxic exposures of many kinds, including adverse environmental conditions and physical toxicants, nutritional deprivation, and physical and psychological trauma and stress.鈥�

Research during the past two decades has produced convincing evidence that early-life exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in air pollution and petrochemical-based compounds like , BPA and PBDEs, which are in everyday consumer products, adversely affects children鈥檚 cognitive and behavioral development starting before birth. Even low exposure to these chemicals can disrupt normal hormonal function. Prenatal exposure to these chemicals has been variously associated with ADHD, autistic traits, reduction in children鈥檚 IQ, neurodevelopmental and reproductive abnormalities. PBDEs were majorly phased out in 2013, though exposure persists. Dubbed 鈥渇orever chemicals,鈥� they resist degradation and bioaccumulate in the fat tissue of living organisms.

Perera quotes Phillippe Grandjean, physician and epidemiologist at Harvard University: 鈥淭he placenta and the blood-brain barrier were probably quite sufficient during millions of years of evolution to safeguard the fetus, but new harmful chemicals have emerged that can manage to pass through the barriers.”

Perera鈥檚 book adds nuance to the socioeconomic disadvantages that magnify the harm from pollution, like psychological stress from material hardship due to poverty, violence and racism.

As Bruce McEwan, the late professor of neuroscience at Rockefeller University, explains:聽 鈥淣ot all stress is bad for you. Good stress comes from rising to a challenge, causing you to feel exhilarated when the body and brain are working properly to help you do so.鈥� Toxic stress comes from insufficient resources to cope with unpredictable, threatening situations or daily hassles. The result is inflammation and suppression of immune function. Poverty is a source of harmful stress: In the United States, nearly 1 in 6 children live in a family with an annual income below the federal poverty line. More than 70% of these children are of color.

Offspring of more highly stressed women show changes in specific brain regions that play an important role in making decisions, regulating social behavior, and processing sensory input and memories. A longitudinal study showed that maternal psychosocial distress and high PAH exposure experienced concurrently by the mother during pregnancy increase the risk for anxiety, depression and other neurobehavioral problems in the children.

Climate-related drought and crop failure affect the young by depriving them of essential nutrients and calories. From conception to three years of age, the brain requires more nutrients than at other stages of development. Physical and psychological trauma due to climate-intensified severe weather events set the stage for long-term mental health problems. Further vulnerability comes from the long remaining lifespans of children. The biological insults that occurred early on may manifest as mental illness, heart disease, lung disease or neurodegenerative conditions in older age such as Parkinson鈥檚 or Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

In a book sure to move parents, scientists, scholars, environmental enthusiasts and students alike, Perera rejects both sugarcoating and climate fatalism as she illustrates the impact on children鈥檚 brain development, and physical and mental health. She dedicates chapters to outlining the steps necessary to preserve life on the planet. She shares success stories of diverse activists, initiatives and organizations blazing the path of transformation, arguing, 鈥淲e know that we have the knowledge and tools at hand to reduce emissions and strengthen children’s resilience, but equally essential are the societal and political changes that enable and accelerate those solutions in an equitable way.鈥� Every person and institution has a part to play, from the arts, to media campaigns that reshape cultural narratives, to caregivers of the next generation.

1. The Child Care Cliff Cometh

For a child care system already buckling, the road ahead looks treacherous. Pandemic relief funding has already started to run dry, and by 2024 the spigot will be turned off entirely. Forced to take even small wins where they can be found, advocates (including myself) cheered Congress increasing child care funding by $2 billion in their omnibus package, but this is the merest drop in a giant bucket given the $53 billion that is expiring. No one should be taking a victory lap.

The fundamental challenge 鈥� crippling staff shortages from uncompetitive wages 鈥� hasn鈥檛 changed, and the strain on remaining staff is only piling up. Many, many programs are facing down an existential crisis, and are reluctantly preparing to take the only action they can: .

The question for 2023 is whether lawmakers respond to the enormity of this problem with a response of the same size. As , 鈥淭he issue cannot wait until 2024 … Getting educators, especially well-qualified ones, back in classrooms will require significant amounts of permanent public funding and the time to recruit and train staff.鈥� One variable is how influential advocates and organizers can be, and whether philanthropy will double-down on politics: child care has begun to get more muscular, but is still a relatively lightweight field when it comes to lobbying and advocacy.

The first chance for action will come as state legislatures begin their 2023 sessions, sessions that 鈥� especially in states like Minnesota and Michigan which have new political dynamics after November鈥檚 elections 鈥� are truly pivotal. Ultimately, however, states can carry the water but so far. Which leads to the second major theme of the year鈥�

2. Is Bipartisanship Possible?

I don鈥檛 know if you鈥檙e aware, but a divided government doesn鈥檛 tend to get a lot done. With a fractious House Republican majority taking the helm, there are open questions about whether they will be inclined to move any significant legislation whatsoever. I am not, however, hopeless. If there is any middle ground to be found, it is surely around family policy.

Conservatives have had something of an awakening (spurred in no small part by the overturning of Roe v. Wade) around the need to support working families with actual policies instead of platitudes. Recently, more than two dozen right-leaning thinkers of 鈥榩ro-family policy principles鈥� which included the need to 鈥淎cknowledge the out-of-pocket and opportunity costs associated with becoming a parent, and advance policies that would make having children more affordable and achievable.鈥� Similarly, National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru had an , 鈥淔amily-Friendly Federal Policy Should Be a Priority.鈥� While these pundits tend to emphasize child tax credits and marriage more than child care, they are surely aware that child care is the, well, elephant in the room.

滨鈥檝别 several times about the fact that the Senate GOP actually put forth a child care bill that embraces many Democratic priorities — absent, of course, any actual funding. While that bill has now expired, it ended this last Congress , not just moderates and retirees but staunch conservatives and presidential hopefuls.

2023, then, will be something of a put-up-or-shut-up moment for Congressional Republicans. If they are willing to come to the negotiating table and talk dollars and dedicated funding sources (and if Democrats are willing to ensure existing choice-based principles remain intact), perhaps a breakthrough is possible. If not, then this year will puncture yet another bag of hot air as America鈥檚 parents and children are left stranded once again.

3. Scrutiny for For-Profit Chains

While questions swirl about the future of U.S. child care, one facet has come under increased scrutiny: investor-backed for-profit chains. These companies, mainly backed via private equity, have been rapidly snapping up market share as independent programs fail. I wrote some pieces , and in December the New York Times鈥� Dana Goldstein . Among other revelations, Goldstein reported that the chains (despite their public assertions) were lobbying behind the scenes against universal child care policies — policies that would, incidentally, restrict their profit and require them to pay their educators well. Perhaps most galling, many chain executives showered Sen. Joe Manchin with campaign contributions the month after Manchin killed the Build Back Better Act with its $400 billion in transformative child care funding.

This scrutiny is likely to continue as the chains grow. States could begin looking at potential regulatory steps, and it is easy to imagine more researchers and policy analysts turning their attention to this long-ignored piece of the sector. With Sen. Bernie Sanders taking over the powerful Senate HELP committee, Congressional action is also feasible. Either way, the issue of mixing profit motive and toddlers isn鈥檛 going away.

4. Deepening the Climate Change & Early Childhood Connection

If you鈥檝e followed my work at all over the past year, you know I strongly believe that there is work to be done . The good news is that last year saw progress in this area. The has had three important public listening sessions, and will have three more this year en route to publishing a major Early Years Climate Action Plan in the fall. That plan will provide a roadmap for how early childhood stakeholders can help systems adapt for the climate era while reducing emissions, and how climate stakeholders can invest in early childhood as a way to build short- and long-term societal resilience.

Similarly, as more evidence emerges about the direct and causal negative impacts of climate change on young children, so too has evidence around the positive impacts of young children鈥檚 access to nature. If efforts to green child care play areas, increase shade, combat heat islands, and improve park proximity pick up steam, it will have a double-benefit for children and the climate.

5. Early Childhood Meets World

The raging storm that swirls around early care and education can create whiteout conditions, making it difficult if not impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Yet two things can be true: the technical and policy challenges facing the sector are immense, and there are bigger moral and value-laden questions at stake. Those engaged around early childhood have an immense opportunity to pull back and shine a spotlight on the larger picture.

Put simply, securing tens of billions of dollars to stabilize the child care system and start building an effective one is a critically important but incomplete goal. There are broader issues here: what does America owe its families? Do children provide value to society that goes beyond their role as future units of economic productivity? How can we espouse principles of freedom when so many parents have their choices about family size and where to live and how to pass down their stories to the next generation constrained not by preference but the availability of care? What, in essence, is this all for?

The early childhood sector has serious moral weight, since we deal not with widgets or stock prices but with vulnerable children and young families. This affords the chance to paint a hopeful moral vision and to situate policy benchmarks, such as child care funding and paid family leave, as vital enabling elements of that vision. As my colleagues Joe Waters and Ian Corbin : 鈥淭here is no getting around our need for spiritual renaissance. A culture of daring, future-facing innovation is best fostered by dedicated groups that willingly pool risk and reward, but this kind of pooling 鈥� also known as solidarity 鈥� generally springs up where there is a deep, shared vision of what is good and beautiful and worth pursuing.鈥�

The balancing act for early learning in 2023, then, will be fighting tirelessly for very practical solutions while building that solidarity in all directions. A spiritual renaissance requires grappling with the child care problem not merely in terms of return on investment or school readiness, but in terms of interdependence and the very future of our nation.

鈥淎s a matter of fact, the future is now,鈥� states Diana Rauner, president of and co-chair with Antwanye Ford of the , a project of the Aspen Institute鈥檚  and .

鈥淎nd with both causes,鈥� she continues, 鈥淲e have a real chance to improve the future. Creating a shared vision of the future is itself a coping mechanism, and it’s pretty important.鈥�

To set the stage for this visioning process, the new  report presents data from a survey conducted in August by of 2,042 U.S. adults. Most notably, nearly three in four Americans feel they have a 鈥渕oral obligation鈥� to make the world a better place鈥� by addressing climate change. And yet only about half of parents say they have talked with their children about it. The survey also found that people of color are more climate conscious and more concerned for children. Anya Kamenetz, author of The Stolen Year, wrote the report.

鈥淭he survey confirms we are living in an age of great anxiety about the future,鈥� says Joe Waters, Capita鈥檚 co-founder and CEO. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 especially true among parents of very young children.鈥�

The depth of anxiety that families have about climate change stands out. Rauner observes, 鈥淲hen parents are anxious and frightened that they might not be able to protect their children from things like floods and wildfires, that鈥檚 where toxic stress comes in for the children.鈥�

The prospects may look grim, but the task force wouldn鈥檛 have taken on this challenge if there were no reason to be optimistic. Waters points to infant mortality as an example of a dire situation that humanity has made strides on. 鈥淲e can make progress on this too,鈥� he says.

The task force鈥檚 ambitious goal is to build a culture that values children and on prenatal to the earliest years, especially in vulnerable populations. Waters acknowledges that this is 鈥渉ard, multi-generational work that will require us to undo a lot of bad cultural habits we’ve developed, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age.鈥�

The task force is setting out to develop an Early Years Climate Action Plan that accomplishes three related objectives:

• Document the health impacts of climate change on very young children. As Rauner explains, 鈥淲e all know that environmental impacts are most sensitive in the first few years of life, so everything that happens 鈥� from air quality and heat and toxins to the mental health of the people who care for them 鈥� has outsize importance.鈥�
• Underscore the benefits of investing in child-friendly climate mitigation policies. This step involves making sure that as the pace of climate change accelerates, along with the response, mitigation and adaptation plans, thoroughly consider the lives of young children, their families and those who support them.
• Highlight places in the U.S. and around the world where good work is happening. Rauner calls this 鈥渓ifting up examples of brave spots where there are things that could be done on a much larger scale.鈥�

Elliot Haspel, senior fellow at Capita senior fellow and an adds, 鈥淚 think we need to be engaging trusted sources of information. Surveys regularly show that parents trust their health care providers above almost anyone else outside of their own family, with child care providers and teachers following close behind. So the more that we help these health and human service providers understand the intersection of early childhood development and climate change, the more they can be a conduit to families, and provide resources about how to talk about it in an honest yet hopeful, age-appropriate way.鈥�

鈥淓veryone at Start Early is particularly invested in this issue,鈥� Rauner says. 鈥淧ersonally, as well as professionally.鈥� The organization has co-developed sign-on letters and communications with the White House and with agencies around the rule making and administrative advocacy.

Waters envisions the task force as a hub for policymakers, philanthropists, researchers and others in a position to contribute to making the world a better place for our children. 鈥淭here is also clearly a role for the ordinary citizen who is concerned about their children’s future,鈥� he says. The report quotes a mother of an 11-year-old boy: 鈥淢y hope is as he grows and matures, he鈥檒l start caring about it. He鈥檒l bring it up to his peers and his teachers.鈥� A father of teenage daughters says, 鈥淚 want them to be really conscious and concerned and have it part of their lifestyle and even career choices.鈥�

鈥淩ather than seeing this as early childhood taking on climate,鈥� says Rauner, 鈥淚 see this as climate taking on early childhood.鈥�

Mark Swartz: How do you explain your job to people outside the early childhood policy world?

Elliot Haspel: This is a broadening of my child care work 鈥� and let me be crystal clear, I鈥檓 still fully in that fight! 鈥� because I think there is a generational need and opportunity to address the early childhood-climate connections, and thereby strengthen both movements. The effort, which we鈥檙e currently calling the Childhood Climate Fund, will grant both within the U.S. and globally. While the details are being fleshed out, we will likely focus on helping child-serving systems adapt to the impacts of climate change (think: air quality in child care programs, or doula access for pregnant women in climate-threatened areas), strengthening parent climate movements, and ensuring via communications that young children and their families are centered in the public mind around climate.

The Fund is only being incubated at Capita for the next 12 months 鈥� Capita isn鈥檛 designed to be a major philanthropic funder鈥攁nd then it will spin off to be its own entity, likely living underneath a philanthropic fiscal sponsor agency like other major pooled funds from the to the .

Swartz: What鈥檚 different about Capita?

Haspel: Capita is a wonderful think tank that focuses on the big questions about the future of human flourishing. They have a particular focus on young children and their families, and two of their major work streams surround child care and climate change, so it was a natural fit for building out the Fund concept. 滨鈥檝别 collaborated with Capita for many years and you鈥檇 be hard-pressed to find a more thoughtful, future-oriented team.

Swartz: What do you wish the philanthropic sector (and/or the media) understood better about the intersection of ECE and climate?

Haspel: The climate change era puts a ceiling on everything else we鈥檙e trying to do to improve young child and family well-being. Addressing it from an early childhood perspective can also bring enormously important attention and resources into the early childhood field. It鈥檚 part of how we win a better child care system, by tying together the fates of caregiving and our climate future.

The first thing I wish more philanthropists understood was that young children 鈥� I鈥檓 talking from prenatal to age 8 鈥� are uniquely vulnerable to climate change in ways even tweens and teens aren鈥檛. I didn鈥檛 know all this until I started digging in, but a ! They also breathe in and out three times more often per minute than you or I. They experience worse psychological damage from natural disasters and displacement. Evidence is increasing that . Add the sensitive developmental period we know early childhood to be 鈥� plus the communities we know get hit hardest 鈥� and you quickly start to put the picture together.

If you鈥檙e a philanthropy that cares about, say, school readiness, you can鈥檛 look at heatwaves, wildfire-driven air pollution, climate-enhanced storms, and go on about your business.

Swartz: What do you accomplish by combining forces between early childhood and climate?

Haspel: One of the untapped ways we can combat climate change is by activating parents as a mass force for change, since those kids are too young to be doing climate strikes. That鈥檚 my pitch to climate funders: there is a shockingly latent power base made up of tens of millions of parents, but we鈥檙e going to have to enter through the door of kids and childhood to reach them. At the same time, a strong, mobilized force of parents of young children 鈥� hmm, that sounds pretty useful for fighting for an effective and well-funded child care system, doesn鈥檛 it?

Similarly, we have an opportunity to bring new constituencies into the early childhood fold. Greening child care programs and schoolyards, ensuring good shade and park equity, creating what Tim Gill calls 鈥溾�� with lots of green car-free zones where children have safe mobility鈥攜ou don鈥檛 have to start as an early childhood stakeholder to care about those things, and they end up hugely benefiting young kids, entire communities and the overall climate. We can look to some international early childhood advocates for guidance here. In particular, the聽(ARNEC) and聽聽(AfECN) have been leaders on the intersection.

Swartz: How do we fight climate fatalism?

Haspel: I think we have a more hopeful story to tell than most people think. We can hold both ideas at once: that this is the most urgent threat of our lifetimes and the greatest threat to our children and future generations, and that and we have an opportunity to create a world that is more family-friendly and promotes human flourishing. This is doubly true for parents who can easily get overwhelmed and experience cognitive dissonance thinking about the impact on their kids. If you asked people, just based on climate coverage, what direction U.S. carbon emissions were going in, how many would be able to tell you ? That many of the truly worst-case scenarios are increasingly unlikely? How many folks understand that renewables like solar are becoming vastly more competitive by the day? That major cities like Paris and Lima have started to or as they pursue a more sustainable future?

Swartz: At least people are paying more attention.

Haspel: That鈥檚 been a real shift in just the past few years. The older youth are incredibly active around this issue. Companies and nonprofits and philanthropies are all realizing they are going to have to reckon with climate. It鈥檚 a heady time in that respect. There鈥檚 a quote I like from The Atlantic鈥檚 Robinson Meyer, who that 鈥渢he fight against climate change is going to change more in the next four years than it has in the past 40. The great story of our lives is just beginning. Welcome aboard.鈥�

It鈥檚 tricky to hold both ideas, of course鈥攜ou can slip very easily into unwarranted techno-saviorism (鈥榦h this is fine, we鈥檒l just engineer our way of the problem鈥�)鈥攂ut I think the more we explain the urgency and the hope in the same paragraph, the more parents will find a role for themselves in the movement.

Swartz: What if, in getting more serious about climate goals, we lose sight of other priorities 鈥� equity, access, etc.?

Haspel: I think we have to approach this from an abundance, not scarcity, mindset. As I laid out earlier, I think there is huge upside for the early childhood movement in allying with a powerful, better-funded climate movement. And making the necessary changes for adapting and mitigating climate change will be major boons for child development. Whether we like it or not, climate change is . Not just the impacts on kids themselves, which are massive, but damage to the child care infrastructure itself: when programs flood out or burn down, that鈥檚 a huge blow. And we know which neighborhoods are most susceptible to flooding, for instance.

On the flipside, the communities and organizations the Fund will support are primarily those most impacted by climate change, so this effort will naturally flow resources to communities鈥攂oth in the U.S. and globally, especially in the Global South鈥攐ften shut out from substantial philanthropic support.

Swartz: How do you make sure you鈥檙e adding value to the philanthropic efforts of both early learning and climate change?

Haspel: One of the big ideas behind the Childhood Climate Fund is that we don鈥檛 want to distract philanthropy 鈥� either early childhood or climate funders 鈥� from the good work already under way. The nexus of the two shouldn鈥檛 be an add-on or afterthought; that won鈥檛 help. The most effective path is having a funding vehicle dedicated to the intersection of early childhood and climate change, and which can thread learnings and lessons back to each movement. While we鈥檙e not going to grant our way out of the climate crisis or the child care crisis, I truly believe that targeted philanthropy can catalyze huge change and galvanize a new force for good.