From the day my first child was born, I began to take global warming personally.
Before that, climate change had seemed a horrible but distant cataclysm, so difficult to imagine. However with the birth of Corey, this future became mine to hold. It snuggled into my arms, fragrant and vulnerable. Every fiber of my being demanded I do all I could to protect it.
Because Corey was born in 2000, all the scientific assessments (droughts, disease, forest fires, etc.) were all too easy to translate into how old he'd be. 2020 would be when he was in college. 2040 might be when he was trying to raise children. Etc. I tried to imagine him attempting to live out a normal life, finding a job and love, while (in the words of James Hansen, this country's pre-eminent climate scientist) the world started its process of becoming essentially "a different planet."
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