Millennials climate hopes for the New Year

Our Climate Mamas and Papas are sharing with us many of their hopes and dreams for the New Year: healthy children, clean air and water for us all to breath, a meaningful decision in Paris, strong greenhouse gas reductions; and many other important powerful and possible ideas.

We are excited to watch and participate as the climate movement spreads it’s wings in 2015. Parents and grandparents are organizing and coming together around the country to demand a renewable and sustainable future and now for us all.

But what are our children thinking? Over the next few months we will be asking children around the country, of all ages, what their hopes are for this coming year. Ask your children this weekend and share their hopes and dreams with us. We would love to hear from you!

College student and Millennial Michelle Aboodi, one of our star interns at ClimateMama, starts the ball rolling as shares her hopes and resolutions for the New Year with us.

The Environmentalist’s Resolutions
by Michelle Aboodi

As we enter the New Year on the coat tails of Governor Cuomo banning fracking, Mayor de Blasio’s ban restaurants from using plastic foam, and the U.S. and China coming to an agreement on reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2025, millennials have a lot to be grateful for and a lot of work to do for the future of climate change. The trouble for millennials, as with any generation, is that there are so many causes and so little time.

Millennials are known for their desire to do good and make positive change in the world. For many millennials I know, a great part of the work they see themselves doing in the future involves making the world a better place from a local level to a global level. Some say the millennial mentality is that of the saying “keep calm and carry on.”

Millennials are carrying on with their movements and developing opinions. With the many protests ranging from the climate march to #floodwallstreet to social actions on police brutality in New York City, I have seen with my own eyes how much millennials demand change. What sets apart environmental issues from other causes is that it reaches everyone on many levels from every day weather changes to resource disparities.

Millennials are a large part of the divesting from fossil fuels movement. Many look to 350.org and Bill McKibben to guide their actions. On the minds of many New York City millennials is preserving and expanding green spaces including gardens and parks. Every day practices are constant resolutions – more composting, more recycling properly, and reducing carbon footprints. I have faith that this will be our year of success. Change is happening all around in a big way as issues become more and more pressing. I, as a millennial, resolve to continue on a path of educating others on how to make small and large changes that result in protecting the environment and educating myself on the latest news and policy on matters of climate change.

Michelle Aboodi is a New York University student and intern at ClimateMama