Sarah’s Story

Title

Sarah’s Climate Story

Name

Sarah

Place

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

How are you sensing climate change?

It used to snow every year in the winter—I can remember the thrill of waking up to a normal weekday morning only for my mom to announce that school had been canceled for a snow day. We even sometimes got huge snowstorms in February or March, recipes for annoyed commuters and happy kids. But as the years ticked by, snow has made less and less frequent appearances. Maybe this is just a side effect of childhood nostalgia—the feeling that every weather event, holiday, and outing was just a bit more dramatic and exciting when I was younger—but part of me tells me it isn’t.

Philadelphia isn’t known for its major snowstorms, but it does get snow. And yet I haven’t seen snow, real snow, in over a year. If I had to make a prediction, I’d say this year we’ll have nothing more than a few pitiful snowflakes that don’t even stick to the ground. Maybe I’ll be wrong. I hope I am. But the way it’s seemed lately—from rising sea levels to more catastrophic hurricanes—I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t see good snow in Philadelphia for a few years yet. And for that, I can only hold sorrow for the children of today, the kids who won’t get the same snow days I did when I was in elementary school.

How do these changes make you feel?

There are many words I could use to describe how I feel—sad, helpless, worried—but really, it doesn’t matter how I feel. It matters how I act. It matters for the kids who’ll never see snow, if that’s in one generation or ten. I’m trying to do what I can to stop this change, but I know one person isn’t going to change the world: and that is why I’m sharing this here.