This is one in a series of posts sharing the stories of grandparents, parents and young people who are joining the Walk for Our Grandchildren, July 19th-27th.
This week-long, 100-mile walk will bring an intergenerational message of hope from Camp David to the White House to demand that President Obama reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline and confront the growing crisis of climate change. You can join us for a day on the trail, or join walkers and thousands of others for a culminating rally at the White House on July 27th. Click here to learn more and sign up.
I’m making the 100-mile “Walk for Our Grandchildren” trip from Camp David to the White House because nothing in my 51 years has made me happier than having a son.
Sasha Tidwell is 16 years old now. He is an honor student, an Eagle Scout, and a starting pitcher for his varsity baseball team. Before Sasha was born, I thought I knew what happiness was. I had climbed peaks in the Alps, written three books, and shaken hands with the Dalai Lama. Life was pretty full. Then Sasha was born. It was May 30th, 1997.
At that moment I was lifted onto a cloud of joy – far above the old world below – and I have never come back down. I watched him take his first step, read his first book (Berenstain Bears), ride his first skateboard, and – last week – drive his first car. Through all the skinned knees and book reports and muddy shoes on the carpet, I have always known that being with him and being his father made me the happiest person I could ever be. Life was pretty much perfect.
Except for the sadness. Every day, mixed deeply into the joy, is a sadness: Our climate is changing. The seas are rising. Storms are getting bigger.
If having a son is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, then it makes sense that I would want my son to have this same gift. And I do. But then I do the math. If Sasha has a child – my grandchild — by age 30, it will be the year 2027 when he or she is born. By the time that child is out of college, it will be 2050. Very bad things are predicted to happen by 2050 due to climate change.
Indeed, bad things are already happening. This year, as a planet, we reached the alarming level of 400 parts per million of carbon pollution in the atmosphere, the highest level in three million years. No wonder Sandy was such a monster and near-weekly heat waves threaten the lives of children at the DC baseball camp where Sasha now works as a coach. And just this week, a study in my state of Maryland confirmed that, by 2050, the projected seal-level rise of two feet will permanently flood nearly 1,000 miles of roads in my state. And by 2100, a staggering 3,700 miles of streets, roads, causeways, and bridges will be gone in Maryland.
Even children know that when you’re in a hole, you stop digging. So I am walking from Camp David to the White House from July 19-27th to tell President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. I want to thank him for his new climate plan announced in June and to celebrate his renewed commitment to renewable energy and efficiency. But I’m taking a week out of my life that I could be spending with Sasha, a week in the brutal July heat of Maryland and DC, and I’m walking 100 miles to tell President Obama that tar sands oil is not clean – and fracked oil and gas are not sustainable.
I’m walking to give a voice to my beautiful son’s future child – my grandchild. Imagine how happy we will all be when the climate threat is finally over and we can go on with this beautiful life without that profound fear, that gnawing sadness.
It brings joy to my heart just thinking about it. And it makes the 100 degree heat of next week’s walk an easy burden to bear.
