Gen Z is anxious about climate change and leading the way on action

Last month, a new study highlighted how people my age — fellow teenagers and young adults between 16 and 25 — are feeling anxious about the state of our climate. It showed an overwhelming majority of people in this age range across the country share this feeling.

As a young person from Western Springs, this study made me feel seen.

I am worried about many species, such as migratory birds affected by changing weather patterns. I’m concerned our air won’t be clean, it will be too hot or cold to go outside, and much of nature, especially rain forests and coral reefs, won’t be around much longer unless we do something.

I’ve found hope in meeting young people striving to make a change in the climate crisis. At my school, I helped create a native plant garden and designed signs to educate others about conserving local wildlife.

I also had the chance to join a trip to Costa Rica with Ecology Project International, where I assisted in leatherback sea turtle population surveys. The experience gave me hope seeing how groups of young people are working to help wildlife and bring that knowledge back to their communities.

I’m also part of the King Conservation Science Scholars program at Brookfield Zoo Chicago, where I’m learning about the effects of climate change on our local ecosystems. I spent a week with the zoo’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Project team, discovering how climate change has intensified red tide in the Gulf of Mexico and how that has negatively impacted species like bottlenose dolphins.

I have learned a lot about climate change, but there is still so much for me to learn. I feel inspired to take action and help wildlife, but I’m calling on others to join me.

It's clear the majority of us care about climate change. If more people realized that even little things make a difference, like eating less meat and finding greener means of transportation, then we would be well on our way to a healthier climate. If people were exposed to more opportunities where they could learn to love the natural world, then perhaps our future might not feel so bleak.

There is hope all around, but we need to act now. It’s going to take all of us working together.

Charlie DeCraene, Western Springs

Mayor’s cluelessness hurts Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson continues to show Chicago his inability to serve as mayor by choosing appointees who embarrass him almost as soon as they start their duties. His first set of School Board appointees surprisingly resigned en masse before they could even settle into their task, a jarring event. Has that ever happened before?

The latest is the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, appointed by Mayor Johnson to head the Board of Education, who almost immediately proved his selection to be a blunder by posting antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorialist comments on personal media.

In a city as diverse as Chicago? One wonders (a) how he ever got the title of "Reverend," since his social behavior contradicts the very notion thereof; (b) how Mayor Johnson could be so unwise as to appoint him to any public body, given his glaring disqualifications, which certainly were not hidden all along, as blatant as his statements have turned out to be since then?

This is not Mayor Johnson's first misstep but part of what is becoming a pattern of bad decisions. One wonders who is more to blame? Johnson, for his cluelessness, or his promoters who ushered him into office of a major, diverse city like Chicago? Whoever they are, they have shown how inept they are.

Mutual respect means what it says: Mutual. By his performance, Mayor Johnson keeps showing he is unacquainted with the concept of mutual respect; otherwise, he would have appointed acceptable people who would not embarrass him. The same goes for those who saw him as qualified in the first place. And absent a recall to remove Johnson from office, Chicagoans must condone his clueless mayoral performance for his entire term. Woe is us.

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park

Waiting on Comcast...

Both the NHL and NBA seasons have started, but we still can’t see the games because Xfinity/Comcast can’t agree with Chicago Sports Network. What’s up with that? Do we need a special invite from the president of Xfinity/Comcast to go watch the games at his house on DirectTV? Comcast should get in the game. End the greed and put on the games.

Christopher Berbeka, Palatine

Hold Acero charter school leaders accountable for closings

I am a special education teacher at Octavio Paz Elementary, one of the Acero schools scheduled to close at the end of this school year.

I appreciate the Sun-Times has amplified the voices of Acero families, as well as the calls to action from the Chicago Teachers Union. However, I fear that the media is repeating the mistakes of the 2013 CPS school closings coverage.

As a result, I suspect the individuals who made the decision to close seven schools are thrilled with your reporting, as it allows them to evade responsibility for their reckless actions.

In this instance, 13 Chicagoans (the Acero board of directors and its leadership team) wield power and command great sums of money. These people communicate via unsigned press releases and websites. They tell us “Acero” makes decisions. They say that old buildings and balance sheet statistics dictate these choices, but we know that buildings and spreadsheets do not have agency.

In permitting the decision-makers to be absent from the discourse, local media implicitly reinforces the notion that school closings are inevitable and blameless, handed down to us by shapeless economic and architectural forces. This position is not impartial. It is the stance of those 13 powerful individuals. To perpetuate this lie is to take their side.

Students and parents endure this disruption as individuals. They have no amorphous corporation to blunt the blow for them. Acero executives and its board of directors should be held accountable.

Steve McNamee, teacher, at Octavio Paz Elementary, Acero Schools

Election by popular vote

I would like to urge you to support Illinois’s existing National Popular Vote law calling for the election of the president by a national popular vote of the people in all 50 states. Some are advocating a repeal of National Popular Vote. When we vote for virtually every other office, the candidate who gets the most votes wins. It should be the same for president.

Gabriella Brown, Evanston