'Not Doomed Yet' is Millennial's COP21 plea

'Not Doomed Yet' is

Millennial's COP21 plea

by staff writer

PARIS, FRANCE -- With the upcoming climate talks in Paris dubbed ''COP21'' set for November 30, the time to get real about global warming is fast approaching. In a very short time, all eyes will be on Paris, and the recent terrorist attack there on Friday the 13th makes the climate conference all the more alarming.

One young Jewish man in Washington is trying to sound the alarm with a weekly newsletter titled "Not Doomed Yet."

Meet Robinson Meyer. He writes the weekly ''global warning'' newsletter about pressing climate issues for the Atlantic magazine's science website, and he brings to his work a sense of urgency and compassion for future generations. His own generation, too. A 2013 graduate of Northwestern University, Meyer writes as if humankind is running out of time.

 

Maybe we are.

 

But if nothing else, Meyer is a die-hard optimist, and while he is only in his early 20s with a long pundit future ahead of him, he knows that his generation -- and all those generations that will follow -- is headed to uncharted territory and uncertain times, and he's not afraid to say so in his newsletter. It's online now.

Meyer is an optimist, a Millennial from the Class of 2013, but he's also a realist and he knows deep down which way the wind is blowing. Having grown up in New Jersey and the Chicago area, he's seen a thing or two in his own lifetime already and knows how to harness social media to get his points across.

 

He's definitely a Millennial climate-watcher worth watching.

Meyer recently had a close encounter with Pope Francis when the Catholic pontiff was visiting Washington in October.

On one of the social media platforms he uses, Meyer, whose father is Jewish and whose mother is Catholic, noted:  "Walking to Yom Kippur services, I wound up being 40 feet from the Pope (visible inside the Fiat [car he was in] as a pale smudge). He waved and everything. Never have I been truer to my Jewish/Catholic roots."

 

Earlier in the year, he found himself in a restaurant in Washington when who should pop in for a meeting with some young social activists than President Obama himself.

 

At the Atlantic site, Meyer introduced his newsletter last month with humor and enthusiasm, writing: "I have lost count of the number of people who have identified climate as 'the political issue of the 21st century.' It ranks up there for me, too."

''When I consider whether to have children, I think about climate change," Meyer says. "When I consider where I want to live, I think about climate change. When I stand on the beach and play catch with my younger brothers and wonder what their young adulthood will be like, I think of [climate] refugees and resource wars -- and, thus, climate change.''

Paris is now the focus of the world, first because of the recent Friday the 13th terrorist attacks, and secondly, at the end of this month, because of COP21. Let's hope it does not turn into ''FLOP21.''