Two weeks ago my family and I picked strawberries and raspberries at a farm just half a mile from our Vermont home, along the fertile banks of Winooski River. The fields were abundant with bright red berries from one of the best crops in years, and my children delighted in waving at us with raspberry-topped fingers. A thick blanket of wildfire smoke that day tempered my own delight with a sense of unease. Code red air quality meant that all four of us wore N95 masks as we gathered berries; the sky was an eerie shade of gray.
Last week, heavy rains battered Vermont and much of New England in a storm that made the national news. While our home was spared damage, many other homes and businesses in our community were not. A few days after the storm, I walked back down to the family farm at the end of our road to see how they’d fared. The waterline from the floods had reached at least 7 feet high, far above my head. All the remaining berry crops had been destroyed.
Across the country and around the world, we’re experiencing unprecedented weather extremes. As I write this, the southern United States is scorching in a days-long heat wave with no clear end in sight. Smoke from Canadian wildfires is choking the East Coast, again. Forecasts show rain on the way for New England, and in my own community, neighbors are bracing for more floods. Records for extreme heat, poor air quality, and rainfall are shattering on an almost-daily basis.
As the records break, so do our hearts.
It’s heartbreaking to see our communities hurting and to know that it’s only a matter of time before the next incursion of extreme weather. It’s heartbreaking to know that the pain of extreme weather is felt unequally, with low-income communities and communities of color hit harder in nearly every way. It’s heartbreaking to have to tell our children it isn’t safe to go outside to play and to wonder if summers will ever feel safe again.
This isn’t normal—and it’s heartbreaking to know that the version of normal we once knew isn’t coming back.
We’re being confronted with the reality of climate chaos in what feels like an entirely new way this summer. But we are not powerless, and as writer Mary Annaise Heglar reminds us, it is not too late to act:
“If you are worried that it’s too late to do anything about climate change and that we should all just give up, I have great news for you: that day is not coming in your lifetime. As long as you have breath in your body, you will have work to do.”
As we take time to grieve what has been and will be lost, we must also summon the moral courage to act. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advocating for a just transition to clean energy has never mattered more—the impacts of the actions we take now will quite literally reverberate for decades and generations to come. Every time we demand accountability and climate action from our governments and large corporations, we cast a vote for the future our children will live in. Every time we refuse to believe it’s too late to act, we put our love for our children into practice.
If you’re feeling bruised and frightened by this summer’s onslaught of extreme weather, you are not alone—and I hope you’ll join us in taking action. We need you in the climate movement more than ever.