EARTH WEEK MUSING PART II: OUR CHILDREN'S CRISISDear Usdan community: Earlier this week, I shared with you how teenagers influenced me to care deeply about the climate crisis and the changes they encouraged me to make in my personal life. You are welcome to read Part I of this musing here. Today, I want to share how this corona crisis has given me and each of us the opportunity to better understand the climate crisis and what changes my colleagues and I are making to address the climate crisis through Usdan. When we pull out of the corona crisis, the climate crisis will not have gone away, so let’s start with the parallels between the two crises. First, they are having an inverse impact on children. Though children are spared the most from the corona crisis, our youth are going to suffer the worst and the longest from the climate crisis. Also, the corona crisis is reminding us that science is objective; science does not feel, nor does it care how we feel. The virus is biology moving across the planet, taking its toll on any human that stands in its way. The climate crisis is physics, passing across earth wiping out people on its course. Further, the way to address the corona crisis is through massive, unprecedented global action by citizens and governments, and the only way the climate crisis can be managed is the same way, at a tremendous worldwide scale. Finally, the corona crisis is forcing us to sacrifice what each of us thought was our normal life, the life to which we were entitled. The climate crisis similarly requires us to make great sacrifices and renounce actions we once thought of as usual and permissible. Both crises require change that is hard to fathom. When I first heard youth activists demand that “leaders make change” and when I demanded it too, I thought of the leaders as others - heads of states and CEOs of the top polluting corporations. Then I realized that as director of Usdan, I too am a leader who must lead change. It dawned on me how easy it was for me to demand from a distance that others make sacrifices, but how hard it would be for me to turn around and lead that change myself at Usdan. I was motivated not just by the fact that Usdan could contribute to the change by modeling a sustainable world with our children, but that if we could feel the challenge personally, then our demands would no longer be abstractions and our calls to action would be legitimate. I believe that Usdan can have an impact, and that because camps collectively serve over 10 million children in the U.S., together they can generate a tremendous impact. And so, my colleagues and I challenged ourselves to address the climate crisis via Usdan. To be honest, the thing I am most proud of this year is the creation of a 10-year sustainability strategy for Usdan, which includes five clear goals and annual steps to get there. This week, in honor of Earth Week, we would like to share the goals with you.
To close, the last work day that three of my colleagues and I had prior to the quarantine was spent not at the office, but instead at the largest camp conference in the world: the American Camp Association Tri-state Conference. We had been chosen to present twice on sustainable camps. After the second presentation, we looked at each other knowing the virus was likely around us at this very large gathering and decided we should go home. We’d been working on one crisis when we entered another. When we come out of this current corona crisis, that original crisis, the climate crisis - our children’s crisis - will still be advancing. It will still be threatening us, but will be especially threatening our children. Please, now, let’s take what we know from the corona crisis – the dominance of science over us, the necessary collective global action, the required personal sacrifice – and together let’s use this knowledge to address our children’s crisis. Take care, Lauren Brandt Schloss, Executive Director My colleagues and I after presenting at ACA Tri-State Looking for ways to celebrate Earth Week with your family at home? For over fifty years, Usdan has brought together world-class teachers and visitings artists to teach and collaborate with campers ages 5 to 18 in nature. If it matters to you that Usdan makes it through this difficult time, please consider making a donation today. Your generosity will help us build creative resources for our community to keep creativity alive when we need it most, and support our mission to instill in young people the desire and drive to creatively contribute to the world now and for the rest of their lives. |