[Untitled]
Creator
Cloe Chunn
Date
April 27, 2022
Text
1) Where do you live? Describe something meaningful to you in your environment or community, or in the place where you grew up.
I live in Waldo, Maine, on Wescot Stream, the only undammed river in the Belfast Bay watershed. Therefore, Wescot Stream is where schools participating in the Fish Friends program (Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition collaborating with USFWS) release the salmon fry they have raised in aquaria.
2) What changes in your environment have you observed that may be due to climate change?
With climate change, Wescot Stream is warming and may not be suitable for salmon to return to and spawn, if they ever return, which we are hoping for. Other changes are southern birds arriving for the first time, other birds wintering over for the first time, and some birds leaving and going farther north to live. The very few hot summer evenings we used to have are now hotter and run for longer periods of several days.
3) How are you responding emotionally to these changes?
I feel terrible for children growing up now, and for children yet unborn or newborn. What kind of world will they live in? I worry about my own children in their 40s, and feel thankful they have not had children. I worry about the stress we have put on all animals and plants in ecosystems that now are too hot for them, too cold, too wet, too dry, and too cataclysmic for them to live. I worry about people who cannot afford electric cars and houses insulated from heat and cold. I wonder how teenagers must feel, knowing that my generation betrayed them and continues to do so.
4) What are some ways you are creating a positive future?
I am trying to help people realize what we are losing by taking them for walks and paddles, trying to organize groups to work to reduce the causes and slow the rate of climate change. To keep myself from crying, I am spending as much time as I can with the trees, birds, trails, and water I love.
PS: Thank you for this initiative! You are raising awareness and organizing a whole community to respond to climate change needs.
I live in Waldo, Maine, on Wescot Stream, the only undammed river in the Belfast Bay watershed. Therefore, Wescot Stream is where schools participating in the Fish Friends program (Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition collaborating with USFWS) release the salmon fry they have raised in aquaria.
2) What changes in your environment have you observed that may be due to climate change?
With climate change, Wescot Stream is warming and may not be suitable for salmon to return to and spawn, if they ever return, which we are hoping for. Other changes are southern birds arriving for the first time, other birds wintering over for the first time, and some birds leaving and going farther north to live. The very few hot summer evenings we used to have are now hotter and run for longer periods of several days.
3) How are you responding emotionally to these changes?
I feel terrible for children growing up now, and for children yet unborn or newborn. What kind of world will they live in? I worry about my own children in their 40s, and feel thankful they have not had children. I worry about the stress we have put on all animals and plants in ecosystems that now are too hot for them, too cold, too wet, too dry, and too cataclysmic for them to live. I worry about people who cannot afford electric cars and houses insulated from heat and cold. I wonder how teenagers must feel, knowing that my generation betrayed them and continues to do so.
4) What are some ways you are creating a positive future?
I am trying to help people realize what we are losing by taking them for walks and paddles, trying to organize groups to work to reduce the causes and slow the rate of climate change. To keep myself from crying, I am spending as much time as I can with the trees, birds, trails, and water I love.
PS: Thank you for this initiative! You are raising awareness and organizing a whole community to respond to climate change needs.
Collection
Citation
Cloe Chunn, “[Untitled],” All of Belfast: Climate Dialogues, accessed April 19, 2024, https://abcdbelfast.omeka.net/items/show/107.
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