Nothing to Lose: Why Millennials Will Save the World
On June 25th, 2012, I stood and watched as pillars of flame engulfed Blodgett Peak and cascaded towards the only home I’d ever known. Hours earlier, my family had gotten into an argument on whether to evacuate early, only to have the discussion cut short when we saw fire on the mountain. We fled first to my father’s office, where my parents more-or-less frantically put together a plan for where to go. And I stood, beside a car full of hastily collected possessions, and watched my city burn.
We stayed the night with a friend in town, not knowing if our home was even still standing. I remember staying up late watching comedians on Netflix, trying desperately to calm my anxiety. It didn’t work. That night I hardly slept at all.
In the end, 18,000 acres burned, two people lost their lives, and 344 homes were lost. But mine wasn’t one of them. By virtue of chance, and the bravery of men, the fire never reached my neighborhood. Others, however, weren’t so lucky. 13 families from my school were left without houses to return to. It goes without saying how deeply I was shaken by this disaster. Without warning or discernable reason, good people lost nearly everything. It became clear to me, even before I understood the pollution and greed which had primed my community for destruction, that I was far from safe from blatant injustice. I realized that, in a burning world, I had nothing to lose. And that made me dangerous.
Much of Colorado, contrary to what most expect, is “high desert.” In a normal year, we enjoy so little rain and endure so much dry heat that any other classification makes little sense. And as the global climate has warmed, a forested desert has become a tinder box. With summertime heat predicted to increase by up to 9 degrees fahrenheit by mid century, with precipitation expected to decrease 15%, and with the pine beetle able to turn trees into deadwood for twice as long, forest fires are becoming a fact of life for much of the state, and the country.
Simultaneously, the water needed to sate both a growing population and a dying wilderness is running out. For years, the vast majority of the state has been losing the snowpack which waters its farms and grows its cities. In 2017, only a handful of measuring sites showed more snowpack than the 1980 average. If this trend continues, there will come a time — much sooner than we’d like — when urban life in Colorado is nigh impossible.
And, because irony seems to be mother nature’s favorite whooping stick, destructive fires have been matched by devastating floods, as the now burnt ranges can no longer hold back the tide of summer downpours. In September of 2013, a flood ravaged Boulder, causing more than a billion dollars in damage, and killing at least 8 people.
To live in Colorado is to witness climate disaster first hand.The cost of action may be money, but the cost of inaction is life.
Let’s return to that moment in the parking lot. A moment when my faith in justice without struggle was destroyed. You see, in some way the Waldo Canyon Fire never stopped raging. It continues in the hearts of all those young people who watched their city burn, and wondered what caused such a cataclysm. And we are not alone.
I would imagine — in fact I would insist — that these disasters were just as impactful for those young people who lived through them as Waldo Canyon was for me. My entire generation has been raised in a world where our future is all but certain. Young men and women from Ha Tihn to Hamburg have learned that this is truly a fight for survival.
When people ask me why I fight, why I founded Keep Colorado Green, and why I insist that it is my generation that will stop at nothing to save the world, my answer is simple: When the world is steaming towards the painful and premature death of all those you love and will ever love, in flame or flood, in smoke or tsunami, in American or Azerbaijan, you quite literally have nothing to lose. And that, is what makes us dangerous.
Out of solidarity for the Charleston Attacks, and in hopes of allowing them more coverage, I have decided not to publicize this story until Tuesday at the earliest. I will keep it published, but I would appreciate it if you would refrain from sharing until then. — Matthew
