Emily Chaflin

Silence is the quietest thing.
Not a whistle or note,
Frail dark blue wings still,
Small head gently at rest,
Cold eyes closed.

They ask why the caged bird sings.
The answer is the caged bird sings because it can sing.

The caged bird sings
For the day it will be free,
Free from this life,
Free to fly,
Free to sing any song.

I cry not because she is gone,
Or because I will never hear another song,
Now this caged bird sings forever.

Poetry

In a KidSpirit Poem, teen writer Emily Chaflin evokes a caged bird's yearning for freedom.

Sing No More

Global Youth Voices

In the 11th century, there once lived a shepherd named Hari.

He lived a happy life with his wife and two children in Kashi, India. Every day he took his sheep to graze. The climate of the 11th century was very nice. Flowers blossomed during spring; there were pleasant rains and energizing sunlight in summers.

In Kashi, some people earned their livelihoods by running small spice businesses, others were woodcutters. There was a king named Brahmaputra who ruled Kashi. King Brahmaputra ruled his kingdom well. He loved hunting. Every day he went hunting for deer, elephants, and other wild animals.

One day, Hari took his sheep to graze as usual. It was the monsoon season and he was close to the forest. The clouds and sky had already turned grey. Like always, King Brahmaputra had gone hunting. It started to rain, lightning struck, and Hari’s sheep ran away in fear. Hari tried to catch one of the sheep, but she ran deep into the forest.

King Brahmaputra was hunting in the same forest at the same time and he spotted a big deer. As soon as he released the arrow from his bow, Hari’s sheep jumped in between. The arrow hit and killed her, and the deer ran away. King Brahmaputra felt guilty, and then furious. He thought it happened because of the trees. He ordered all his kingdom’s woodcutters to cut down the forest.

Hari looked at this and thought, “If all trees are destroyed, what will happen to our coming generation?”

For many days he was disturbed. The woodcutters followed the orders of King Brahmaputra. Hari fell deep in thought. In spite of his sheep getting killed, he still thought of the greater good. After a couple of days he came up with a plan to save the forest.

He thought, “One day the earth will not remain beautiful. It will become an earth of crisis.”

He came to know that there would be sudden climate changes on the earth if trees were cut down. Spring, his favorite season, would never be the same.

Hari became a great philosopher. He went to King Brahmaputra and told him his philosophy. He asked him to refrain from killing animals and revoke the order to fell trees. King Brahmaputra did not want to consider this and threw Hari out of his palace.

Today, in the 21st century, Hari’s prediction has come true. The Earth is truly in crisis. There are sudden climatic changes and no flower blossoms, even in spring, because in the modern world, forests are being destroyed and rivers polluted in the name of development. In India, where I live, we experience unseasonal rains, droughts, and increases in air and water pollution, which causes asthma and diarrhea.

The holiest river of India — the Ganges — is also polluted by industrial and human waste. We believe in bathing in the Ganges to clean ourselves of sin. To reduce this pollution, the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, has hosted a “clean Ganga mission.”

Let’s take steps together to make our earth beautiful.

There are many ways that we can help. Here are some ideas: I ask that my friends come together and vow to plant and maintain at least five trees on their birthday. Please do not use vehicles for visiting places that are near your house. Consider taking shorter showers.

I invite my friends from all over the world to think like Hari and contribute to save our Mother Earth.

Years ago I remember reading a short story called “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. It went something like this: “Once there was a tree… and she loved a little boy.”

Throughout the story the tree sacrifices parts of ‘herself’ for the boy, so that he will be happy. I wondered if humans could actually be the boy of the story and the tree the earth. When we think about it, Earth does its best to provide us with its resources, but like the boy, our demands on the earth have become too great.

What do we mean by a “greener future”? In truth, a greener future will not only mean finding more enviro-friendly sources of energy, covering cities in solar panels, and planting substantial forests. A greener future means preserving what we take for granted today so that future generations can see what we saw, hear what we heard, and smell what we smelled.

Clearly, our goal should be creating a sustainable future where succeeding generations can live in harmony with nature.

However, this goal will not be easy to achieve. The problem is that humans consume more natural resources than the earth is able to provide. As a result, these resources are rapidly depleting, due to ever-greater demands. Human consumption patterns significantly influence the global environment, and since many of the earth’s resources are non-renewable, it is essential that we preserve them.

The obvious consequences of rampant human population growth and global industrialization include a loss of biodiversity, reduced quality freshwater, ocean acidification, and extreme weather caused by the changing climate. Numerous animals and plants suffer; in fact, many have become extinct due to our selfish indifference.

Building a sustainable or greener future requires our efforts, starting now. Everything we do impacts the planet. Everyday actions, from using lights at home, taking long showers, or using cosmetics, make a difference on Earth. People’s choices — our choices — can lead to the greener future we envision.

“And the boy loved the tree… And the tree was happy.”

Just like the boy in the story, if we learn to appreciate what Earth has to offer, a positive outcome is possible. The earth loves us and it is our shared home. Just like the giving tree, the earth cares for us.

It’s time to offer some kindness in return.

I believe that our future can be made greener by embracing technology rather than shunning it.

As a girl who plans to major in computer science, I’ve had many conversations with my friends about the opportunities to use what I learn to solve issues that plague society today, such as our environmental problems.

One of my favorite things about technology — the reason I was drawn to it initially — is how it can be harnessed to solve almost any issue. For example, technology can be used to improve the medical field as well as help teachers provide different styles of learning to students. When I was introduced to the world of computer science, I was surprised that I had found an area of study where I could creatively solve problems with concrete solutions.

My mother, on the other hand, avoids technology to the extreme. She still sends bills via snail mail, writes her schedule in a paper agenda, and goes to the library to look up information. On the contrary, I use technology to the extreme. My schedule is synced between my computer and phone; I’ve set alarms to go off on certain days; I almost always send email — never snail mail.

It is easy to see why people like my mom fear how technology seems to encompass and control our lives, especially after spending time with people like me. My constant connection often limits social time with my family. I become obsessed with my world and forget to think about what is happening around me. In some sense, technology actually handicaps my desire to stay connected to problems that our world is facing. However, this does not have to be the case.

Technology is the key to a greener future. Gadgets like the Nest Thermostat allow for a decrease in energy consumption that saves both money and the future of our planet. Additionally, a wide range of apps exist to incorporate eco-friendly thinking into everyday life, including Ethical Barcode, which allows users to scan items they are considering buying in order to better understand how “green” the product actually is.

The application Carbon Tracker is a free app that allows you to track your carbon footprint. After charting your carbon emissions, you can set goals to reduce your impact. After using this app, I found myself more motivated to be environmentally aware. It became more like a game, rather than just another task. These apps and devices are things that even people like my mother would use. They do not seek to take over one’s life but rather to help save the planet in easy ways.

With technology, we can brighten our future as whole. While a life surrounded by gadgets might not be for everyone, I think we can all agree that a greener world made possible by technological innovation is positive.

Birds chirp serenely in luminous green treetops on a crisp, autumn day in Yosemite National Park. Under jagged rocks, a rushing river houses thousands of gleaming fish. Ancient sequoias loom majestically overhead.

Under jagged rocks, a rushing river houses thousands of gleaming fish. Ancient sequoias loom majestically overhead.

While idealized, this view of our environment has been contemplated for centuries. Traced back to the Native Americans of the Great Plains from thousands of years ago to the efforts of John Muir in the late 1800s, preservation strikes a deep chord. But what is possible in a world dominated by expanding industry and never-ending technological change?

What many fail to consider is the idea of conservation: a delicate balance between environmental protection and economic advances. This ideal was heavily embraced by Theodore Roosevelt during his presidency in the early 1900s. He created 53 wildlife preserves and five national parks while also endorsing various irrigation and canal projects.

Roosevelt eagerly supported this concept of equilibrium, and rightly so. Both extremes of the argument have faults. On one hand, complete destruction of the land will, of course, lead to loss of life and potential for crises in the near future. Yet, the sweet, placid air of uninterrupted nature has its shortfalls just the same. Advances in society are what have fueled the world to revolutionary heights. Whether the hundreds of thousands of miles of railroad laid down in the Gilded Age or the innumerable dams that have been constructed worldwide, our world has become an interconnected network. If these factors of communication and advancement were removed, the world could no longer thrive.

Today, the Obama administration continues to make decisions and legislation which attempt to sustain a balance between conservation and utilizing the land for resources through various laws and executive orders. As pressure continues to build in the face of economic expansion, the movement continues to hold strong in educating, advocating, and influencing policy makers and companies.

Conservation combines, rather than isolates, the best factors from both extremes of sustainability and use of resources. While hard to believe, nature conservation is not about completely ignoring sustainability or focusing simply on expending resources. Rather, it is about striking a balance — a delicate equilibrium — that will ensure our world continues to be a base for human advancement.

I live in Pakistan, which is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of population, but 34th in area.

Our country is blessed with a lot of resources, but the population is growing. This will be a challenge as it is believed that by 2025 Pakistan will be the largest water-stressed nation in the world.

Since Pakistan’s inception, we have relied on the Indus River. The Indus, affected by climate change, is quickly drying up. Climate change is also manifest in the melting glaciers in the northern mountain ranges of the country. The result is floods that haunt the semi-urban areas of the country every summer.

My maid, Khalda, was a victim of one of these floods. She used to live in a village in Sargodha, Punjab. Her house and her children’s schools were destroyed, and her family was completely helpless after the flood. She, her husband, and their six children spent a week in the stagnant water, lacking resources and food to eat.

Eventually an NGO visited their village and took her family, along with others, to Karachi. After a lot of struggle, Khalda found a small home and jobs for her husband and herself. When the family was stable enough, she let her children go to school.

One day, after a week of working in my home as a maid, Khalda asked for help and money from my mother. She told us that her youngest child was suffering from typhoid. When my father and I looked into this matter, we admitted the child to the hospital. I looked after the five-year-old child’s health every day, but as he was very young, he died.

I felt helpless that a flood changed Khalda’s life; that she lost one of her children and was forced to leave her home. Khalda was completely devastated by grief when she lost her special one. The child’s death made me very upset and I kept questioning why this happened.

This is not just about the suffering of people, but the mismanagement of water. Eventually there will be a lack of water, because it is going to waste.

I felt bad when I saw a child lose his life because of pure ignorance, and worse when I was helpless to stop his suffering, though I tried my best.

There is nothing more vital than life. It is important to install efficient irrigation systems and hydroelectric power systems, and for the Pakistani government to show concern and plan ahead to make our environment sustainable and stable.

We really can’t afford to lose people because of natural disasters that we could control if we were more concerned. It’s high time we started thinking about human life: it is the most important thing in the world.

As our world’s population grows larger, we are faced with crucial dilemmas.

Since the population is growing exponentially, world leaders are faced with the challenge of safeguarding current natural habitats while satisfying their people’s needs.

I find it imperative that alternate technologies are found to replace those which currently deplete our natural resources or contribute to their destruction.

Notably, schools are now switching to tablets and computers as their main mode of teaching. However, I find myself at a disadvantage. I already have contacts; I don’t need to strain my eyes even more because I’m so focused on a screen! I am accustomed to paper in my hands so I make quick notes. Usually I ask for scrap paper, which is counterproductive. I propose that we find an alternative form of paper — not completely switch to electronic devices from paper materials.

Most paper, if not all, comes from trees that take years to grow. Felling so many trees a year has drastically increased the amount of carbon since trees are nature’s regulators of a healthy atmospheric mixture of gas.

Trees are critical to the carbon–oxygen cycle which ensures the balance of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The destruction of forests skews this balance. We can renew our forests by halting their mass use for commercial purposes. Wood is used in so many ways around the globe; if a sustainable substitute were found, millions of trees would be saved.

There is a Gujarati proverb which states, “Little drops of water can fill up a big lake.”

Using different kinds of pulp, recycling, carpooling whenever possible, and conserving water use may seem like small contributions, but future generations will thank us. The future could be a world filled with parks, forests, and clean air for all.

People in formerly smoggy cities could spot beautiful constellations on clear, starry nights. Children could play in local playgrounds and parks. Such a beautiful earth would be available for generations to come. To ensure this future, we must seek ways to convert what technologies we have into greener forms.

The earth has existed for over four billion years. Homo sapiens have dwelled here for less than 150,000 years.

The amount of time humans have lived here is minuscule compared to the age of the earth.

Since the earth’s creation, the climate has been changing. Countless climate cycles have been observed and innumerable ice ages have occurred. Today, many top scientists believe that the earth is going into a warming cycle. The questions that can be asked are many, but some of the most pressing are:

If so, how much do humans contribute to this?

Climate cycles vary greatly and rarely do what is expected, so it is hard to draw hard conclusions from the evidence. In fact, in the 1970s scientists were afraid that the earth would go into a cooling cycle. Another issue is that there is a lot of data to process and it is sometimes hard to find the correct data.

Humans have only started affecting the climate in the past 100 to 200 years — following the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Surprisingly, the most drastic climate event in that time frame was the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. The eruption released 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and caused global temperatures to drop one degree Fahrenheit for three years. In three days Mt. Pinatubo released one fifth of the sulfur emissions that would have been released by global industry and transportation in one year.

Nature’s power is shocking; it is one of the largest factors in climate change and had been the only factor for billions of years. Though the common scientific consensus is that humans are affecting the earth, the extent to which we are doing so is very hard to pinpoint. It may be quite low, but it could also be anywhere from 1% to 100%.

I do not think that humans play a large role in climate change. However, I may be wrong. If human activity does affect the climate significantly, then we will have to change the way we use energy. We will have to move away from our current non-renewable energy sources and shift towards the use of renewables. Instead of burning large quantities of oil and coal, we can use more energy from wind, water, and solar power.

If we continue to use coal and oil, we have to find cleaner means of producing them. We would need to put scrubbers inside the smokestacks of plants and produce better filters. Carrying out these reforms would be hard and expensive, but if necessary they should be done. Before we carry out these changes, however, we need to prove that humans have a big effect on the climate and, for now, I’m not convinced.

If it were proven that humans play a large role in climate change, I would change some things that I do. A great way to measure greenhouse gas emissions is carbon dioxide emissions per person per year. The average American is responsible for the release of 19 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That includes heating, food, transportation, and other household activities.

Air travel is very carbon intensive. On the average flight from New York City to San Francisco, three tons of carbon dioxide is released per person! Usually our family goes on an airplane once a year. If I were convinced that climate change is a big concern, I would substitute our annual vacation with a fun trip to a nearby beach. On a larger scale, we could ask people to travel less by air. We could create laws that make air travel more environmentally friendly. We could only fly planes that are filled to capacity, ask people to sit in smaller seats, and eliminate first class to fit more people into every plane. If such action were necessary, these steps would greatly lessen our carbon footprint.

Diggles, Michael. “The Cataclysmic 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo.” U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 113-97 (2005). http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs113-97/.

Elizabeth Rosenthal. “Your Biggest Carbon Sin May Be Air Travel.” The New York Times. January 26, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunday-review/the-biggest-carbon-sin-air-travel.html?ref=elisabethrosenthal&_r=0

Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Homo sapiens. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1350865/Homo-sapiens

Klimont, Z., S. J. Smith, and J. Cofala. “The last decade of global anthropogenic sulfur dioxide: 2000–2011 emissions.” Environmental Research Letters. 8 (9 January 2013). stacks.iop.org/ERL/8/014003.

Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. New York: William Morrow, 2009.

Earth, the only living planet, is being destroyed by its own dwellers.

We have made devices that release halocarbons, which destroy the ozone layer. Many holes have formed in the ozone, which allow UV and infrared rays to reach earth, causing skin cancer and worse. We are burning coal and oil to produce electricity that produces CO2, forming a shield around the ozone layer, trapping the UV rays on the earth for several years. These, and many other reasons, are why we should think of ways and means to sustain our earth.

Scientists have predicted that between 2030 and 2040 there will be such a hot, killing summer that everything will burn. Food will be scarce so people will fight each other for resources, creating chaos all over the gracious planet.

Augustin Mouchot was a great scientist. I came to know Augustin Mouchot from watching a National Geographic program on television called COSMOS. Mouchot made a very important discovery about solar energy and created a solar generator. In 1878 there was a Universal Exhibition in Paris where Mouchot presented his generator. He said that the world’s coal would run out one day, but the sun will remain forever. He used his solar generator to run a refrigerator and other electrical appliances. It was a great invention, but due to lack of technology at the time, it did not work properly. However, his invention wasn’t a waste — it inspired many others to create advanced solar devices.

I think scientists should invent devices that need less electricity or fuel. A good example is the hybrid car. It has a large battery which charges itself while the car engine is running and helps decrease fuel consumption.

Humans are the main cause for increased climate temperatures. We should not pollute our homelands, should not cut down forests and jungles and destroy natural habitats. We shouldn’t throw hazardous chemicals into our rivers. All of this affects our environment. We should recycle and care more about animals and other living things around us. We have endless opportunities to change our lifestyle: using less electricity, wasting less water, planting trees, minimizing the use of paper, and avoiding using plastic bags. These small actions make a big difference.

I believe people should use available resources in constructive and productive ways to sustain our beautiful Mother Earth. If we do not save and conserve our planet there will be no place where humans or other life can live. Saving our planet is not only important for me but for everyone. It’s time that we do something. If we don’t, we will suffer. Time passed never comes back.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, global youth voices offer commentary on the issue of our rapidly warming climate, and what we need to do to preserve our planet.

Our Warming Climate

Maria Christian

Late April, 2010. I am lying on my back. We are so high up in the mountains that the snow is nowhere near melting.

Back home the temperature is in the low 80s. Up above us the stars are blinking, cold and clear, in the black sky. I am 10 years old.

As my teacher tells us the names of the lights in the sky, I feel my heart soar and my stomach drop. The sky is so big it seems to swallow us. I want to be swallowed. I want to fall forever from this tiny blue light into the darkness.

February, 2011. Another clear cold night. The moon is unnaturally bright. In the backyard, I look up. The clouds are icebergs in the arctic sea. My heart soars and my stomach drops. Up there, the arctic is frozen in a reflection. That night I dream of a golden girl who tells me that I must survive.

My relationship with earth, as you can see, is tenuous. No matter where I am, no matter how beautiful, I long for the stars. The closest one can come to that kind of infinity is to look across the ocean at the horizon. That feeling of fear and awe follows me; the one place I want to reach is the one place I cannot.

When I was younger we learned about “keystone species.” These animals keep their ecosystems balanced by their presence. For instance, beavers; they provide a home for all kinds of other animals. This fascinated me. I started to draw complicated webs, weaving the different creatures in my neighborhood together with Crayola lines. I started to think that perhaps humans are a kind of keystone species. After all, we fill the bird feeders and found wildlife preserves. But what about animals going extinct?

The dual nature of man was too much. Having a black-and-white view of the world, I began to wonder if humans were essentially good or essentially evil. Was it wrong to kill even a mosquito? I tried to become a vegetarian, but, being eight, I liked chicken nuggets far too much for that.

Earth is not, for me, a source of inspiration. It is a source of confusion, of terror, of vile fascination. It is maddeningly chaotic. It is ugly where it should be beautiful and beautiful where it should be ugly. I understand animals and people and trees, but I cannot understand their song. I don’t know why a baby cries when it sees the light for the first time. I cannot know the underlying poetry of the world, though I can make stabbing, brutish guesses. The guesses become stories. None as good as when I first feel them in my bones.

The snow is falling as I write this, heavy on the branches — a slow, deadly thing. Yet it is beautiful and pure. The earthly paradox is the most beautiful things are poisonous. The stars look so much simpler from down here. But I know in my heart they are not. The stars, whoever lives beyond them, are as dangerously beautiful and volatile as us. In the meantime, perhaps it is better to keep this one, small, blue world safe.

My dream in this world is to inspire people’s hearts to soar and stomachs to drop. I want lonely people to come to me so I can tell them the fractured stories in our bones. I am always searching for the loneliest souls. I know there must be people who feel homesick for places they’ve never been; people who miss stars they’ve never touched.

As snow falls, suffocating the plants asleep below the soil, as a bird chokes out the dying note of its final song, as the world spins eternally around a white-hot star, as everything rots and is reborn, there is light.

I may never know where my dream of the golden girl came from or why I long for ice and stars. This world, and how I fit into it, is mysterious. Some answers come with time, others never do. Most often, being alive seems to be a great triumph. It is a beautiful thing to survive.

No matter how vile, how needlessly cruel the world seems, fire glows and the sun burns. Where there is violence and evil, in the cracks of concrete, a flower grows. The soil and the sand are made of the dead. Yet they live. The paradox grows into a tangled knot that no one could ever untie.

The best we can do is tell stories, sing songs, and look up at the stars.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Maria Christian gathers her inspiration to help preserve the planet by first looking beyond the stars.

What Is Our Relationship to the Earth?

Skyler Sallick

Close your eyes and envision what you ate for your last meal: whether cornflakes for breakfast, a turkey sandwich and chicken soup for lunch, or a juicy cheeseburger for dinner.

Now try to pinpoint the starting locations of each aspect of the food you consumed.

Uncertainty about where our food comes from is a byproduct of the industrial food system.The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals takes the reader through the captivating, sometimes unexpected, journey through this system. Author Michael Pollan takes on the role of investigative journalist, examining several aspects of the industry, from massive farms and feedlots to direct, all-organic markets.

Pollan diagnoses what he calls a “national eating disorder.” He uses this idea to chronicle the story of our food, from soil to the plate. By trying to answer the question of what we should eat for dinner, Pollan attempts to interpret the tricky toss-up between a food system that is good for humanity and the environment, and one that produces the most profitable crop.

He explains the inauguration of new machinery from the industrial revolution and how that has altered farming techniques. Pollan uses this idea to convey to the reader that we have been using all of these tactics not to benefit an already existing system of farming but to create an entirely new one that, in the end, puts family farmers out of business. The world of farming has become a secondhand industrial wasteland, where the food we eat never comes from one place. Even the high-fructose corn syrup in our sodas does not come from one farm; a single drop could contain corn from farms spread out over the entire country.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is impressively well researched. Not only did Pollan include an extensive collection of scientific facts, he searched for personal experiences that could help him to better understand the system and convey his message with a little more oomph.

I was able to genuinely connect with Pollan when he told of his journey through a hunter-gatherer meal, where he described consuming something he himself had taken from the earth — and what a gratifying experience that was. He picked his own greens and killed his own game to produce a meal that he had single-handedly created. Pollan also tells of his experiences following one cow that he had purchased through her life. This was another aspect of his writing that compelled me greatly. Instead of solely stating stats about the rapid decrease in time that it now takes for cattle to become full size, he followed one cow for a truer, firsthand look.

Pollan compares what used to be considered a prospering farm to the industrial farms of today, painting the heartbreaking dilemma between feeding the people and feeding the industry.

This juxtaposition caused me to question what we, as a society, put into our bodies. There has been a shift in what we consider the most consequential and pivotal functions of the food industry. I found it interesting that instead of emphasizing health and proper food, we seem to prioritize efficiency and quantity. This way of thinking has translated into the way Americans eat as a whole. More often than not, families feed their children larger quantities of lesser quality food, rather than smaller quantities of better food. Has society’s focus on productivity and efficiency caused these smaller farms to die out, thus limiting our healthy food options and making it less affordable to take proper care of our bodies?

Pollan points to the government’s domineering relationship with the industrial food industry. Starting during Nixon’s presidential term, the United States government has issued a series of agriculture laws that have shaped the industry into what it is today. All of these government implemented systems, laws, and grading scales have converted the generational passing down of traditional farming into factories and rows of impersonal machines, thus demolishing any strong, personal connection between the producer and the consumer.

I recently had the opportunity to make homemade ravioli, and the experience allowed me to connect with Pollan’s hunter-gatherer meal. I was able to distinguish the differences between eating dishes where you can name the ingredients, and those where you question what, exactly, you are ingesting.

Pollan is unafraid to lay down the dirty truth about what occurs behind the closed doors of the industrial food system, which I greatly applaud. However, his arguments are long and drawn out. The first 120 pages are all about corn. Through his comedic expertise, it did not seem so horrifying. I wish Pollan had used his ability to stun the reader with personal experiences more. I found that I was able to connect with the processes and the industry most when he demonstrated how it connected to my life.

I give The Omnivore’s Dilemma 4.5 stars. Pollan caused me to question what I already know, prompting me to figure out what part my life plays in this bigger system, something I look for in first-rate books. However, I found that Pollan could have condensed his writing for clearer descriptions of scientific facts and processes.

The solution to the problems Pollan points out might just be going back to basics, returning to the roots of how we produce and consume our food. He explains that if we understood where our food came from and how it got to our table, “every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature. Every meal would be like saying grace.”

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Skyler Sallick shares her impressions of The Omnivore's Dilemma, a nonfiction book by Michael Pollan about how we grow, prepare, and eat food.

A Review of the Omnivore's Dilemma

Mustafa Khan

I was 12 years old, in July 2010, when my country was flooded by the Indus River due to turbulent monsoon rains.

It was an ordeal to turn on the television every day and see the devastation. I felt impotent and useless. Though I was unharmed and sheltered at my house, watching the tragic event on the television and hearing about the disastrous impact it had on our economy affected me greatly.

Pakistan is a nation of 120 million people. The floods of 2010 affected 20 million; one-fifth of our country’s land was submerged underwater. The country was in turmoil. Thousands of households were destroyed and thousands of people were displaced. It had a devastating effect on all citizens as we watched our whole country being ravaged by the flood. The flood rendered thousands of people homeless and hungry. It made me feel immensely guilty to sit at home, just a few miles away, unable to provide any sort of help.

My mother asked me why I looked so gloomy one day, and I told her how I constantly felt guilty and useless. She told me that I could donate to a relief camp if I wanted to help the flood victims. I was unaware that there were massive support camps in my city, and that we could donate food or clothing items to them. Although my parents had donated, I felt that it was my responsibility as a Pakistani citizen to contribute myself. I used all my savings to buy dry food items and gave a few of my t-shirts. When my package of food and clothes was delivered, I felt I had fulfilled a responsibility. It brought me great joy to know that, because of my donations, someone would be filling the empty stomachs in the refuge camps and they would have clothes to cover themselves.

My cousin was responsible for delivering the package as he was working for a relief camp and visiting the affected areas. He informed me about the conditions in the area and it was gut-wrenching to hear that children my age had been displaced from their families and had no roof to sleep under. Fortunately, through donations, orphanages were built in the affected areas and the children were given homes and free education.

Though I was unable to visit these areas, I learned from television and social media stories of the survivors and how we were helping them restart their lives. To increase more donations, I participated in a fundraiser held at my school where I baked cupcakes and raised a few thousand rupees. Fundraisers and charity events to help the flood victims were conducted throughout Pakistan and helped, not only with donations, but with awareness of the incident as it was broadcast to the international community.

Through donating and participating in fundraisers, the guilt I felt earlier diminished. The feeling of uselessness we have when we sit at home and watch people suffer on the television can be turned into productivity by making an effort and helping society.

I was 12 and was so pleased with myself at the time. The devastation created by the flood provided me with a reality check. There are people who suffer through so much and witness the destruction of their homes, and yet those of us fortunate to live comfortably make a big deal out of trivial issues. This incident has made me glad for the life I have and made me truly grateful for all that my family has bestowed on me.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Mustafa Khan helps to relieve some of the suffering experienced by survivors of the 2010 floods in Pakistan.

The Flood of 2010

Nathan Zhang

Oh, Smog
Thank you for keeping us inside
Preventing wicked physical activity from its stride
For coloring the world with your lovely grey sky
And freshening the air with a high AQI.*

Look at the wonderful PM 2.5 particles in the air
Common in China, not so rare elsewhere
And you have a delightful smoky scent
That makes me let go of all my hate and resentment.

Oh, Smog
I wouldn’t know what I would do without you
But just want to cry and wash the sky
with tears from my eyes!

*AQI means "air quality index," which is higher when pollution is worse.

In a KidSpirit Poem, teen writer Nathan Zhang offers a wry perspective on the smog that blankets urban areas in China.

Ode to Smog

Anna Zimmer

I was not raised in a family where religion played a big role.

I have always known that both my parents were Christians at one point in their lives, but they drifted away and by the time I was born, they were both atheists, happy to have their Sunday mornings free of commitments. When I was in elementary school, my mom started going to a church in my town.

I didn’t find out what kind of church it was until middle school, when my mom told me that she wanted me to attend youth group there every week. I went begrudgingly, thinking how much I would rather be sleeping or watching television in my PJs than discussing faith with a group of near strangers. My skepticism increased when I learned that it was a “Unitarian Universalist” church, something I’d never heard of before. I wondered if the name was chosen purely for the alliteration. They call themselves “UUs.”

It’s alright if you’ve never heard of Unitarian Universalism; most people haven’t. Since Google doesn’t provide a very helpful definition of what it means to be UU, I’ll do my best to explain — but I do not think anyone has ever successfully written a clear explanation of my faith. Unitarian Universalism originated as a branch of Christianity, but it has since separated from the Christian religion. Every UU church does things differently, but one unifying factor is that all UU churches are accepting of everyone, no matter their beliefs.

At my church, North Parish, our reverend draws wisdom from all faith traditions. We have members who identify as Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Pagan, Atheist, and more. There is a place for everyone in the UU community. As I got to know the people in my congregation and learned that I, too, was accepted, I have found my place among UUs. I have grown to love my church. It has become a place of refuge for me, a place where I can escape the stress of boarding school, relax and be present, for once not rushing from one place to the next.

Unitarian Universalism has seven core principles, one of which is “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Caring for the world, the environment specifically, is a huge part of being a UU. We believe that Mother Nature, however you define that — whether as a spiritual being, the earth’s life force, or as the living world that surrounds you — is beautiful and valuable. Our responsibility as members of our global community is to protect the environment because our own well-being is deeply connected to the health of our world.

As part of this interdependent web of all existence, we are affected by Mother Nature just as much as she is affected by us. As such, we must never stop working to protect her. The first time I learned about the need to protect the environment was actually before I started attending my church. I was in fourth grade, learning about ecosystems and recycling, mostly just drawing a lot of pictures of big blue earths and big green arrows. For some reason, though, that unit stuck with me more than any other I’d ever learned in a science class. I went home and lectured my family about the importance of recycling until they had no choice but to take me seriously. Having already had this interest in keeping the earth clean before becoming a UU, the green principle resonated with me more than any of the rest.

My church was certified as a “Green Sanctuary” in 2012, which means that the Unitarian Universalist Association assessed the environmental impact of our building and surrounding grounds, how we dealt with consumption and waste, and how we educated our members about environmental issues. After this initial assessment, my church put together a Green Sanctuary Committee that did wonderful work throughout our community: leading a recycling initiative, showing educational films, encouraging discussion among youth, and organizing teams to clean up local trails, parks, and graveyards. All this eventually got us our certification.

As a certified Green Sanctuary, we have committed ourselves to bettering our community in terms of caring for the environment. The Green Sanctuary Project has four different categories that each congregation has to focus on: environmental justice, worship and celebration, religious education, and sustainable living. Once a congregation has become certified, it is important to continue making improvements. The church is encouraged to apply for re-certification even after obtaining Green Sanctuary status. Re-certification is important because it reminds a community that the fight to build a happier, healthier world is never over.

Becoming a Green Sanctuary is how my church chose to uphold the values of our green principle. Seeing those in my community take action has reaffirmed my own beliefs, those first introduced to me in fourth grade, about the importance of caring for the environment. Knowing that my faith cares about these issues as much as I do has given me confidence that there are people willing to help to heal our earth. I believe that is the most important principle of all: to live the values you preach. That is certainly what my church has done and what I hope to do in my own life.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Anna Zimmer describes the Unitarian Universalist church's mission to preserve the health of our environment.

Our World: An Interdependent Web

Bill McKibben

We all happen to be alive at an extremely interesting moment—the exact moment when human beings have grown so large that they’ve begun to affect everything around them.

Human civilization—the period we have records for, when people lived lives somewhat like our own—stretches back about 10,000 years. Scientists call that period the “Holocene.” The earth’s climate stayed stable for those 100 centuries—there were storms and droughts and floods, but if your great-grandmother had grown corn in a particular field, you could count on growing it there too. People were pretty small.

But about 250 years ago, people learned how to burn coal, and then gas and oil. These are called “fossil fuels,” because they come from the bodies of plants and animals that have piled up over hundreds of millions of years. Each time we burn some of that fossil fuel, we put a little more carbon into the atmosphere. And since the molecular structure of carbon traps heat, the planet keeps getting a little bit warmer. We finally noticed this in the last few decades—it’s what scientists call climate change, or global warming.

By this point, it’s pretty bad. The world is warm enough now that the polar ice caps have begun to melt. During summer in the Arctic, boats can now sail through open water, where before there had been feet of ice. The world’s great glaciers are sliding into the sea and raising the level of the ocean. Because warm air is moister than cold air, we see more evaporation in dry areas like California (where a terrible drought is underway) and more downpours and flooding in wet areas (like in Pakistan, where the worst flood of the modern era drove 20 million people from their homes in 2010).

One way of understanding this is that human beings have gotten much bigger. For most of our history, we were just one species. We changed the world by planting fields or cutting down trees, but our impact ended at the edge of the field or the border of the forest. When we learned to burn fossil fuels, we suddenly got very large. Now our impact is changing the temperature of the planet. There’s still almost no one living in Antarctica, but the ways we live are melting that remote continent. We’ve done away with the basic physical stability that marked the Holocene era, so scientists have come up with a new name for our time: the “Anthropocene.” The era made by man.

This new world that we’re creating by raising the temperature is already causing a lot of problems, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. On low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, for instance, people have begun to have to evacuate their countries—the rising tides make it impossible to live where their ancestors have lived for generations. In other places, the rapid spread of mosquitoes (who like the warm, wet world we are creating) brings with it new disease. Drought and flood make life hard for peasant farmers. In some big cities like Sao Paulo, it’s gotten so dry that people turn on their taps and nothing comes out.

But worse problems lie ahead. So far human beings have raised the planet’s temperature about one degree Celsius, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s been enough to melt the ice caps. The scientists who study our carbon emissions say that on our current trend we will probably raise the temperature four or five degrees before the end of the century. That would make our planet hotter than at any time since primates began evolving. It would be very hard to grow enough food or find enough water on a planet like that.

The good news is, we don’t have to keep burning coal and oil and gas if we don’t want to. In the last few years—the same decades we’ve learned about climate change—we’ve also learned how to use the sun and the wind to generate much of the power we need. Engineers have worked hard to make solar panels cheaper and more efficient; now, in many places in the world, it’s cheaper to get your electricity from the sun than from a coal-fired power plant. Inventors have even made practical and reliable electric cars—so if, like me, you have solar panels on your roof, you can essentially drive on the energy of the sun.

A few countries have tried very hard to put all this technology to good use, and they’ve had spectacular success. In Germany, there are days when 80% of the electricity is supplied from solar panels. In Denmark, 40% of the country’s power comes from windmills. Every other country in the world could do the same thing—in fact, in many places it would be much easier. Germany is far to the north, and gets about the same amount of sunshine as Alaska. Think how much solar power you could produce in Arizona or Florida, in India or Africa!

In too many places, however, the development of renewable energy has been slowed or stopped because the fossil fuel industry is fighting against it. For most of us, sun and wind are a great blessing—once you have a solar panel or wind turbine, you get electricity for free. But for the coal, gas, and oil industries, they’re a threat. If everyone had cheap, clean energy, they wouldn’t need to buy the old stuff any more. Electric cars don’t have gas tanks, after all!

So those fossil fuel companies have given lots of money to politicians to pass laws making it hard to switch to renewable energy. Luckily, lots of other people are fighting back. Around the world, there’s a powerful movement, led mostly by young people, to stand up to the coal and gas and oil companies. People have gone to jail to block new mines or pipelines. They’ve elected new kinds of politicians who don’t take money from fossil fuel companies.

They’ve even made giant works of art to wake people up to our crisis. I remember one great piece of artwork made by several thousand people in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Because of a deep drought, their river had dried up. Then, on one particular hour, on one particular day, thousands went down into the river bed and stood next to each other. They each were carrying a blue blanket, and right at the moment they knew a satellite was passing overhead, they held the blankets up high in the sky. On the photograph snapped by the satellite, it looked like blue water—it looked like the river was coming back to life.

To me, that’s the key. I’ve spent most of my life working on this crisis, because I think the world we were born into is so beautiful. I’ve lived most of my life deep in the woods of the eastern United States and know firsthand all of the seasons—the spring, when doe hide their tiny, day-old fawns in the woods from predators; the summer, when the hemlocks shade the streams, keeping them cool enough for trout; the fall, when the leaves turn neon for a few weeks; the calm quiet of cold, unbroken winter. My friends in other places know different kinds of beauty—the tranquility of Pacific Islands, the stark grandeur of high Tibetan mountain villages, shady oases in the blazing Australian desert. Wherever we are, that sense of place runs so deep; it is a great human inheritance.

Of course, we are the creatures that can pay witness to that glory. It’s one of our jobs, even as the planet is in trouble. We need to take time to get outdoors, to be part of the big and beautiful. And then we need to come together and fight for its future.

Our planet is in trouble, but it’s not doomed yet. We still have time, if we stand together, to move toward a different kind of future. I hope you’ll get involved. By acting carelessly, human beings have changed the world for the worse. Now, if we’re careful and committed, we can make some changes for the better.

In a KidSpirit PerSpectives article, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben exhorts us to protect the planet on which we live.

Our Human Inheritance

C. Hochman and O. Tang

2014 was the hottest year on record globally.

Even more surprisingly, 2014 was a record year for climate and general environmental policy. In June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever governmental regulation of carbon emissions. In November, the United States and China adopted a set of guidelines to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the world’s two largest economies.

In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama named climate change the “greatest threat to future generations.” However, in early 2015, conservative political commentator and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh dismissed the entire body of research behind climate change as “one of the greatest hoaxes in science.” He went on to claim that all evidence for the anthropogenic origins of global warming is fabricated.

“You’re gonna learn how to fake ice core sample temps. You’re gonna learn how to go to obscure places in Siberia and dig 30 feet down and find an age-old tree trunk that’s been buried that has tens of thousands of years of temperature data in the bark. You’re gonna come up with hockey stick theories left and right.”

Even though nearly all climate scientists agree that human activity has caused global warming, environmental policy has long been treated as a political football. Many political commentators have even claimed that the global climate has not undergone significant shifts since 1950, despite measurable evidence. Temperatures from 2001 to 2012 were warmer than any previous decade in every region of the United States.

Today, however, the argument science-skeptical politicians have lodged against climate change has shifted from outright denial to claiming that climatic shifts happen independent of human action, therefore absolving humanity of any blame. This belies an extreme lack of understanding of basic climate change science. In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, a UN-affiliated board of climate scientists, published the latest Compilation of Biennial National Reports saying that the “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

What’s also undisputed is the root cause of our changing climate — greenhouse gases. This class of gases includes carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and halocarbons. Though certain halocarbons can cause up to 23,500 times the damage as carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is widely considered to have the greatest overall impact on the climate, as over 80% of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide.

In balanced doses, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases work with the sun and the earth to maintain a constant temperature suitable for plant and animal life. The sun’s rays continuously flow energy to earth, providing us with light and heat. When the sun’s energy is not used by plants or humans, the earth absorbs it and radiates it back towards the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation.Think of greenhouse gases as a blanket that absorbs some of this heat energy and traps it within the planet. This is not necessary a negative thing: these gases keep the Earth’s average temperature at about 15°C: warm enough to sustain life for humans, plants and animals. Without these gases, the Earth’s average temperature would be about -18°C, too cold for most life forms. This phenomenon is known as the greenhouse effect.

Problems arise when the amount of greenhouse gases dramatically increase without a proportional decrease in the energy emitted the sun or reflected by the Earth, like being wrapped in a thick, woolen blanket in the middle of summer. The higher the level of greenhouse gases, the more heat energy from the sun is trapped close to the earth and the hotter the climate becomes.

The basis of many arguments against human-induced climate change is that the amount of greenhouse gases in the environment naturally changes, so the current jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide is only part of a millennia-long trend. However, there is an abundance of evidence that modern human activity has caused increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the leading cause of climate change. Burning of fossil fuels — whether by cars for transportation, power plants for electricity, or factories for industry — is the main cause of increased carbon emissions and therefore evidence of anthropogenic climate change.

Over the last century, as human emissions of carbon dioxide increase, so too does the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. This, as previously discussed, has led to an increase in global temperatures. Raw climate data does not prove in of itself that humans have caused climate change. Many have said that carbon dioxide levels have fluctuated throughout time. This is only partially correct — between 400,000 years ago and 1950, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels remained approximately constant, around 180 to 300 parts per million.

Today, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, carbon emissions have jumped higher than that range for the first time in almost half a million years. (See an animation from NOAA here.) 1950 marked the first time in over 400,000 years of measurable data that global carbon dioxide levels began to rise above 300 parts per million, an upward trend that does not appear to be ending anytime in the near future.

Not only do many believe that these immense jumps in carbon concentration are natural, many also think that the current rise of human-produced carbon dioxide levels is a mere fraction of carbon dioxide released naturally, therefore clearing humans of blame. This also is simply not true. If the amount of carbon dioxide did increase naturally, there would be a corresponding decrease in oceanic carbon levels.

When ocean water is exposed to the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and other gases dissolve into the ocean — imagine tiny gas bubbles diffusing into the ocean. There, carbon dioxide bonds with water to form an acid. An easy way to measure the carbon concentration in ocean water is to measure the acidity using the pH scale. Instead of becoming less acidic, ocean water is increasing in acidity, leading to substantial declines in fish and shellfish populations.

Again, this shows that nature is actually absorbing more carbon dioxide than it is producing. Far from absolving humanity of responsibility for climate change, measurements show that nature is trying to accommodate the negative impacts of the increase in human-generated carbon dioxide emissions.

Scientists can see the amount of carbon dioxide in the air from fossil fuels by looking at the different isotopes of carbon (carbon atoms with different numbers of neutrons). Carbon comes in three isotopes, but all can combine with other elements to form molecules like carbon dioxide. The only difference in each isotope’s physical properties is the weight – carbon-12 is the lightest, and carbon-14 is the heaviest.

Plants, which eventually turn into fossil fuels, use carbon, but they do not use each isotope equally. It’s easier for plants to use the lightest, carbon-12. However, the weight of the carbon has no impact on carbon dioxide produced by other processes (like when we exhale). This makes the composition of carbon dioxide made from burning fossil fuels different from typical carbon dioxide produced as a natural by-product. When more fossil fuels are burned, the amount of light carbon in the atmosphere, carbon-12, increases.

Trees use this proportionally-lighter atmospheric carbon to build cellulose, the woody parts of a plant. Each ring of a tree’s trunk can be dated by looking at how fast the tree grows, so the amount of carbon-12 can be found at a certain point in time by looking at a certain ring. Tree-rings dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1850 show a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon-12. This means that there is a correlation between the first widespread consumption of fossil fuels and an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. In the last 150 years, the amount of carbon-12 in the atmosphere has skyrocketed, meaning that more and more fossil fuels are combusted.

Increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide have led to a 0.16°C per decade warming trend since 1979. While this may not sound like much, the effects of each decade’s increase compounds over time. Since the 1880, global temperatures have risen almost 1.5°C. Climate scientists have termed the graph of rising temperatures “the hockey stick” for its exponential upward growth. Climate change impacts weather patterns, leading to deadlier and deadlier catastrophes. A USA Today investigation found that in 2012 alone, natural disasters cost the world economy a total of over 200 billion dollars.

Higher temperatures also mean a decrease in glacial ice and snow. The increase in ocean levels, resulting from the melted ice, will displace millions –mostly in low-income, low-lying island countries. Kiribati, a Pacific Ocean island nation with an average national income around $1,500 a year, will be among those impacted the most. Tuvalu, a neighboring island, will probably disappear within the next century. The San Blas archipelago, where the indigenous Kuna people of Panama have traditionally lived, will be underwater in the next 20 to 30 years. While the majority of emissions are produced by industrialized nations, citizens in these nations will not be the ones most affected by global warming.

This means that it is easy for people living in the United States, people like Rush Limbaugh, to sit and myopically deny the dangers of climate change. For wealthy citizens of wealthy countries, it’s really no danger. For them, the most direct repercussions of ignoring climate change is that their children will no longer be able to see polar bears. However, for politicians, the drawbacks of addressing one of the greatest threats to humankind of the modern era are multifarious. Fixing climate change will require much government spending. And it will be difficult to justify that spending to a constituency, especially one that denies the very existence of the problem.

However, this represents the lowest variety of political pandering to anti-science beliefs coursing throughout American society. It is the job of scientists, media figures, and politicians to educate the populace about indisputable issues that need to be addressed, rather than sweeping reform off the table and doing what is politically popular.

The science around global warming is settled. It is time for the politicians of the world to catch up.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writers Caroline Hochman and Opal Tang decry the treatment of environmental policy as a political football. 

Settled Science

“The power of hope is far more energizing than the power of fear.” With these words, John McIlwain, Director of the Climate, Mind, and Behavior symposium at the Garrison Institute, framed a critical issue of our time: climate change. Although the thought of climate change can be a frightening one, KidSpirit contributors sow seeds of hope.

Sing No More

Like what you're reading?