Kids Born Today Could Face Up To 7 Times More Climate Disasters

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 5 October 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Children being born now will experience extreme climate events at a rate that is two to seven times higher than people born in 1960, according to a new study in the journal Science. The researchers compared a person born in 1960 with a child who was six years old in 2020. That six-year-old will experience twice as many cyclones and wildfires, three times as many river floods, four times as many crop failures and five times as many droughts. Read more about the study here. These extreme changes not only endanger the environment, they take a toll on our mental health. KNAU reporter Melissa Sevigny spoke with residents in Flagstaff, Arizona who are reeling from a summer rife with fires and floods. And NPR's Michel Martin spoke with two climate activists of different generations — Jasmine Butler and Denis Hayes — about their outlook on the planet's future amid new climate change reports. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When Anisa Doton picks up her kids from school, they ask her where they're going.
0:05.0	I say home meaning their grandparents and they say, are we going to Nani?
0:11.2	Are we going to Flood House?
0:12.8	Is what they call this now?
0:14.4	The Flood House.
0:15.6	Don't and told KNAU reporter Melissa Sevinney, that's what her kids call their family home
0:21.0	after torrential rain needed unlivable.
0:23.6	Just this week I made my third mortgage payment on a house that I no longer live in.
0:28.4	It's hard to do that and not feel angry about the situation.
0:32.0	One of Doton's kids has special needs and can't safely climb over the six foot high walls of sandbags
0:38.0	and cement barriers that now surround her house.
0:42.0	So they had to move out.
0:43.8	The family lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, an area where massive flooding, like they experience this summer, is not typical.
0:52.0	The side room where you saw the construction, it's a total loss.
0:55.6	A few blocks from where Doton's house stands, Don Rodriguez is also worried about losing her home.
1:01.6	It flooded three times this summer.
1:04.2	She always planned to leave her house for her children.
1:06.8	Her family bought it the day her first daughter was born.
1:10.4	Now she's thinking about selling it, but wonders if anyone will buy it.
1:16.0	We did everything right.
1:18.2	We did everything right.
1:20.2	We did the sandbags.
	...

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