My name is Karen Roothaan and on Saturday I will be 59 years old. I had myfirst vegetable garden when I was sixteen, so I have been a gardenerfor over40years. In my own lifetime, I have seen the climate change, and I have brought with me an "expert witness."
One ofthe first things I learned as agardenerwas that tomato plants were notto be planted out before Memorial Day. This was a rule taughtto me by more experienced gardeners, a rule intended to prevent enthusiastic young gardeners from setting out plants on a warm sunny day only to watch them die in a late spring freeze. This year our last frost was in early April, and I set my plants out weeks ago, saving this one silent witness fortoday.
This plant is basically about a month ahead ofschedule. Last year we planted only two weeks early, yet corn farmers in Illinois had to waitto plant due to excessively wet soil. Everyfall forthe lastfew years 1have watched flowers appear on trees that normally bloom in spring, such as magnolia and crabapple. These seemingly small changes are onlythe ones I have seen in my own lifetime, but I know that other more drastic changes are happening right now as we speak.
Those affected drastically are not here today. The polar bears that swim for miles, lookingfor ice, and the farmers in sub-Saharan Africa waiting for rain, are not here today, but we have a moral responsibility to remember them as we consider the changes we need to make.
Some ofthese changes need to be made on a personal level through better choices in food, transportation, and shelter. Igrow most of my vegetables in the summerand have helped to start two communityvegetable gardens. Icommute mostly by bus and bicycle, and I weatherized my home two years ago. Itake one ortwo vacations a year, by train, and Iam sure Icould go on for a long time about my mostly good (but definitely not perfect) environmental choices. But I am one ofover 300 million Americans, so my individual choices mean little unless I encourage others to take similar steps.
What Ido for a living is teach mathematics at the community college level. Over the years I have introduced environmental considerations into my classes when appropriate, and what I have learned from my students is that people are starting to understand thatthe choices they make have aglobal impact. But this change is very recent, as the following will illustrate.

One very hotday in 2007, I arrived late to class, hot and out of breath from my bicycle ride. Iasked my students how much gas they had burned to get there, and none ofthem knew. Ofcourse thiswas a teachable moment and Icreated what I thoughtwas avery basic assignment, to look up their gas mileage on the EPA website, and to then calculate their annual 

### C02 emissions based on that information. However, none ofthose college students knew that EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. I
am asking you todayto live up to your name and mission and protect ourenvironment. Iam asking for the polar bears and the people ofthe world who live in flood plains and depend on subsistence agriculture fortheirdaily bread, but Iam also asking forthose of us less at risk. We need to know what**~** the EPA stands for, and.we need to see you take a**~tJnd.** 

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