Longer ago than I care to admit, I was leaving school via a city bus in Chicago.

Heavy, dense snow fell in blankets as the wind-whipped bus careened on icy sheets of road. A little less than a mile to my stop, the bus driver pulled over, opened the door, and in a loud yet tired voice said, “That’s it, y’all. I can’t go on. You have to get out.” While I had visited Chicago as a child many times, this was the first year I was taking the bus regularly to and from school–I was thirteen years old. I sat for a moment in disbelief as my eyes connected with the strong man at the wheel. He looked away with a shrug.

I disembarked and began my walk home going east towards the turbulent Lake Michigan and spotted massive waves threatening to overflow from the concrete barrier built around the road. The wind whistled and moaned in my ears and my eyes were blinded by the wave of white. As I walked, each step felt like plunging into and out of concrete and I found myself becoming sweaty, tired and colder as the wind chilled my sweat. I hoped I wasn’t walking on the road.

Up ahead, I saw someone–a small person–emerge from a pile of snow. I drew closer and realized that she was a little kid, no more than six or seven. Her hair completely matted in snow, wearing only a tattered sweater and ballet slipper-type shoes. My eyes immediately brimmed, and I rushed forward. I started to wipe away the snow from her hair and face and asked if she lived nearby. She nodded–tears streaked her face and her eyes reflected the fear I felt pulsing through my own body. I opened my coat and cocooned her in it as tightly as I could, and began to limp forward against the wind as I tried to keep her feet above the ground.

We reached a condo building about four blocks later that had a small grocery and convenience store and went inside. I took her shoes and socks off and began to warm her feet with my hands. I asked the person working if there were socks that could be given to her–it was an emergency, afterall, but was shut down with a look and bark: “Price of socks is two dollars”. I bought the socks and slid them on her feet as I was trying to find out the girl’s name, phone number, and where she lived. She wouldn’t talk. She was crying and petrified.

Eventually, I was able to call her mother who was one block away and came to take her home. As I walked the rest of the way home, now freezing from the warmth of the building in the wilding wind, I began to process what had happened. I remember feeling shame that I had the basics of a good coat, hat, mittens, a scarf and boots. Guilt ran through me like a cold snake: what kind of world is this where children don’t have what they need? Where people turn each other away? Is this the way life is supposed to be?

I view this experience as being foundational as I walked my path into adulthood towards believing that climate and environmental justice is the only way to address creating a loving and equitable world.

The winter storm that occurred that year in Chicago was one of the biggest Chicago had ever experienced and led to the ouster of the mayor and the election of the first female Mayor of Chicago. It inspired critical infrastructure changes in public services financed by tax dollars; and served as a marker for holding elected leaders responsible for actually serving the public. I recognize today how that two hour event sharpened my worldview on just about everything, and serves as my lived analogy to what is happening in our world today.

Threaded in the destruction, hunger, displacement and death caused by our reliance on fossil fuel is the iniquity of people around the world. We who live with next to nothing, who live on the tentative nature of a paycheck are juxtaposed to those very few who enjoy much, much more than enough. In the ironic twist of fate that often accompanies existential crises, those who have the least are often those who have been colonized, forced into building the infrastructure that those who have the most take for granted on a global level.

Growing my conscientiousness has also deepened my grieving for those who are being forced from their homes to face the hostility of a wildly “cold” world. They, too, do not have the metaphoric coats, boots, mittens and hats to face the climate crisis. Will we as a collective humanity offer succor? If not now, when? If not us, who?

I did not expect that everything I needed to know about the world I would find out at thirteen. As we witness and experience injustices only brought into finer focus through climate change, we have a moment in time to create and make real a just world. I can see this world in my dreams: where we collectively channel our power, leaning into believing in our connectedness with the world and all of its eco- and people- systems. I see this as a brilliant and vibrant tree continually gaining strength as it ages into time.

Today, I am leaning into us: I choose to create connections. It is the only way I know to make my dreams realities. As I prepare to attend COP28, I embrace the possibilities in raising my voice in community and collective consciousness with my brothers and sisters from around the world.

Denise joined the Climate Generation team in May 2020 and leads fundraising and marketing efforts. As Senior Director of Development and Marketing, Denise supports Climate Generation’s team in growing resources to amplify our mission and vision. Denise has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of St. Catherine, and has worked in fundraising and development for 17 years. She has served as the founding chair of the Saint Paul Almanac, as director for the Lex/Ham Community Council, and on the Central Corridor Community Advisory Committee. Denise’s passion is fueling transformative work through collaborative processes, and has worked in early childhood development, employment and health and human services. While new to working directly on environmental issues, Denise has seen the first hand effect of environmental disparity in communities where she has lived and believes that radical, lasting change in who we are as a people will come from uniting around practical and expedient action to restore and nourish the environment.

Denise is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.

The post Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in a Snowstorm appeared first on Climate Generation.

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in a Snowstorm