What is it, anyway? This seems good to do. You behaviors. You remember something? I should dive in. Look out your mouth. Be quiet, run! You should be afraid... Step right next to me. You can't have all the other kinds of justice if you don't have environmental justice. All of the other things that we fight for in terms of racism, in terms of sexism, in terms of all sorts of other kinds of discrimination aren't going to matter if we can't get our basic necessities every day. I've seen both of my parents stand up for those civil rights in really concrete ways, actually making sacrifices to make sure that people gave them those rights that they were owed. That really made me want to fight for the rights that I know that I have and that I know that everyone in this country has and I think part of that is part of this climate fight, making sure that we all have the resources that we need. This idea of how things connect, I think it's really hard for a lot of people to understand. And food is a great place to start because everybody loves food. I go to school every day and I used to only have two options. I could have pizza or something that was supposed to be burritos or something. And I found myself thinking, you know, is there a way that students can get better food options that also come from a more sustainable place? Giving students healthier food that comes from local farms helps both the farmers because it gives them steady profits. It helps the students because it gives them a healthy food option and it definitely helps the environment because it means that we're emitting less pollution in terms of transport. But it's also a win for the government because I'm sure they could get competitive pricing from these farms. I'd really like to see our school systems not just in Boston but across the country take some real and decisive steps towards getting more local food and also getting healthier food. In terms of transportation, I think it's really important for people to have the option to get around in a way that is more sustainable but also cost effective for them. I think the most beautiful thing about the city is that you can get anywhere without a car. I absolutely love that. The highway is the bike share system and what you can do is you can come to a station like this, you can take out a bike, you can bike to anywhere in Boston and then you can leave your bike at another station. So it's a really cool way for people who don't necessarily own a bike to be able to use bikes to get around Boston. Highway transmission really helps to cut down carbon emissions as a whole. If you're in a car there's just one or two of you emitting a lot of carbon emissions but if there are 50 people on a bus or on a train it's a similar amount of emissions but over a whole lot more people. So the amount of carbon when each person goes down a lot which is great. I think not only are transportation systems a good way to be more sustainable but they're also a good way to make sure that we don't have so much traffic. So I think all of those pieces are a part of why it's so important to have good modes of public transportation in the city. It's also really important to think about how sea levels will be affected by climate change. A lot of the places and cities around the country that we know and love would be under a significant amount of water if we continue on this trajectory that we're on right now. About five years ago scientists told us that within a hundred years the sea water would come up 33 inches on Fenway Park up to our knees. That really struck us because this is a landmark that we all really cared about and if the water got that high it wouldn't be usable anymore. Fenway Park in baseball have been a part of Boston life for so long that not having a landmark like this here or able to be used would be taking out a huge part of Boston culture. The climate system is the larger system that all of the other smaller systems need to function. If the climate system isn't working well and all of these other systems that are within it aren't going to be able to function properly. Right now we're learning about the civil rights movement and we learned about how they use the legal route because the legislatures wouldn't make the change and understand that discriminating against people wasn't okay anymore and I really saw a parallel with what we're trying to do now. The legislatures don't see why protecting the climate is important they don't understand why they need to make the change from thinking that we can use the resources of the earth however we want to understanding that they're limited and so now we're appealing to the judicial system the same way that civil rights leaders did in the 50s and 60s. In the civil rights movement judges had to take a step into the unknown they didn't know what it was going to be like to not have segregation or discrimination be a part of the law and that's scary and in the same way judges now don't know what it's going to be like if we have regulations that protect the environment that are stronger than they are now but the price of not doing it just like the price of not enforcing desegregation is too high. I've been playing basketball since I was in first grade our coach always says to us what are you doing you know hurry up you're playing as if you're in the first quarter you have all the time in the world when really you know we're at the end of the game in overtime and I think we're treating climate change the same way we're treating it as if we're in the first quarter and we have all the time in the world when really we're in the fourth quarter about to go into overtime and we just start acting as if we're at the end of the line. We need to start making some important decisions. Every parent when they have a child has something they want for them. Once I asked my parents you know what do you want for me and they said as long as you end up a good human being then we've done our job part of that is acting when you see something is wrong is being someone who is what they call an upstander instead of a bystander and for them that's part of being a good person. My name's Esher Shirley I'm 18 years old I'm from Boston Massachusetts and I'm a French horn playing basketball playing systems thinker.