Myname is Karen Roothaan and on Saturday I will be 59 years old. I had my first vegetable garden when Iwas sixteen, so I have been agardenerfor over40 years. In myown lifetime, I have seen the climate change, and I have brought with me an "expert witness."
One ofthe first things /learned as agardenerwas that tomato plants were not to 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 awarm sunny day onlyto 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 onlytwo weeks early, yet corn farmers in Illinois had to wait to plant due to excessively wet soil. Every fall forthe last few years I have 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, looking for ice, and the farmers in sub-Saharan Africa waiting for rain, are not here today, but we have a moral responsibility to rememberthem as we consider the changes we need to make.
Some ofthese changes need to be made on a personal/eve/ through betterchoices in food, transportation, and shelter. Igrow most of my vegetables in the summer and have helped to starttwo communityvegetable gardens. 1 commute mostly by bus and bicycle, and I weatherized my home two years ago. 1 take one ortwo vacations ayear, by train, and Iam sure Icould go on for a longtime about my mostly good (but definitely not perfect) environmental choices. But Iam one ofover 300 million Americans, so my individual choices mean little unless Iencourage others to take similar steps.
What Ido for a living is teach mathematics atthe 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 hot day in 2007, I arrived late to class, hot and out ofbreath from my bicycle ride. I asked my students how much gas they had burned to getthere, and none ofthem knew. Ofcourse this was a teachable moment and Icreated what Ithought was avery basic assignment, to look up theirgas 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 today to 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 for their daily bread, but Iam also asking forthose ofus less at risk. We need to know what the EPA stands for, and we need to see you take a stand.



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