By Isabel Richards and Madeline Canfield
Less than two years ago, Hurricane Harvey launched conversations about saving our planet from the intensifying effects of climate change.
After the disaster, Houston teenagers from a variety of schools, backgrounds and activist organizations banded together and joined the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political organization making climate change an urgent priority in the United States. When we hosted a Houston town hall to explore the potential for a Green New Deal in our city, we were pleasantly surprised to welcome nearly 100 adults.
To the adult ear, our conversations about orchestrating school strikes and demonstrations, or organizing town halls and local candidate forums, often sound idealistic. Adults proudly profess that our generation gives them hope for future change, but they doubt the efficacy of our efforts today. They cite leaders who dismiss our pleas for change by claiming we ask for too much too soon.
Many adults hope for a future in which our generation eventually engineers effective solutions. But we are rising up now because we fear for a future in which such solutions arrive too late. Hope is far too passive a conception
We youth cannot indulge in hope any longer. We have a message for the adults of Houston: We will not wait until the future to make change. We need to act now to mitigate the mistakes of past generations.
It is essential that we, the citizens of Houston, confront the climate crisis with urgency. Currently, when our city leaders address issues of flooding and chemical air pollution, they often suggest a few quick drainage or clean-up projects. But our future is too fragile for rudimentary, impermanent solutions that fail to attack the root of these environmental perils.
The leaders of Houston must publicly link the higher intensity of today’s storms and pollution with climate change. Otherwise, Houston residents will suffer irrevocable consequences.
According to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an international coalition of cities committed to large-scale climate action, Houston already faces a “serious” level of risk from a plethora of climate hazards, including extreme heat, heat waves, flooding, droughts and storm surges.
Houston youth already experience how these environmental afflictions disrupt our education and threaten access to stable housing (i.e., housing that does not require us to climb on countertops to avoid rising floodwaters).
Nearly a quarter of children in Harris County are food insecure, and this number may be exacerbated in coming years as extreme weather and warming damage crop yields and limit the range of crop production.
Air pollution, extreme heat, and exposure to sewage waters during floods jeopardize our health, and rising temperatures and increased rainfall will likely intensify vector-borne diseases, further endangering us all.
City leaders must mobilize immediately to abate these impacts of the climate crisis. It is paramount that, in conjunction with other C40 cities, our mayor and city council take large-scale measures to reduce Houston’s CO2 emissions.
For almost a year, the mayor’s office has overseen the formation of the Houston Climate Action Plan, which sets the vital goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The UN International Panel on Climate Change outlines a similar global decarbonization timeline , also calling for a 45 percent decrease in emissions by 2030. The Houston Plan should adopt the 2030 deadline as well, to comply with international standards and promote swift action.
Executing these goals will require the cooperation of local politicians, businesses, communities and youth. Together, Houstonians can undertake measures to power METRO electrically, install solar panels and smart grids, and incentivize businesses’ use of green energy technology through Energy Buy Back programs and net metering.
To methodically approach these solutions, the Houston plan must describe in detail how the city intends to conduct these projects across the city. City government must also release a public CO2 emissions report biannually, to ensure we are on track to meet the 2030 goals . To get there, the mayor needs to approve the Houston Climate Action Plan this winter, and begin implementing it in spring.
Therefore, the November elections will be critical. If Houston fails to elect a mayor who will improve and champion the action plan, our entire city — and most of all, we, the city’s youth — will be at risk.
So Houstonians: remember your children when you vote in the municipal elections. If our activism truly restores your hope, prioritize climate change today. Electing climate champions on the local level will lay the foundation for procuring a livable future Houston for our generation.
Richards and Canfield are members of Houston Sunrise.