A New York Times article on Monday reported the huge increase in mental illness and suicide among adolescents. One could try to blame it on the pandemic, but the increase started way before then. In 2019, 13 percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 percent increase from 2007. Suicide rates, next to guns, is the leading cause of death for teenagers in the US, and in North Carolina, it is the leading cause. Emergency room visits for anxiety, mood disorders and self-harm is up 60% since 2007, and the suicide rate has also increased by 60% since 2018.

We need to stop for a moment and take this in. …. Look at what our teens are dealing with, and the future that is staring them in the face. Climate Change is real and they are watching with horror at the adults around them not doing enough to stop it. Gun violence is in their schools and in their parks. Bullying on the internet is rampant, and parents feel helpless in not knowing how to stop it. The political divide is not only separating Republicans from Democrats, but it is separating families and causing discourse among friends. Then we had a pandemic, and our kids were isolated from their friends, with only the internet to connect them. The pandemic certainly added to the problem, but it did not cause it. Food insecurity, family insecurity, financial insecurity became worse for the majority of Americans, but the rich got richer, and our kids are watching. Where is the justice in all of this? What can we do?

The article talked about the lack of treatment centers, quality control within the treatment centers, and how emergency rooms are having to step up and become the temporary treatment centers for so many of these teens across America. We need to support policies that will create more treatment centers for these kids, and we need to find ways to repair our world, so that our kids don’t feel so hopeless.

How Big Oil Companies are Greenwashing the Sale of their Wells!

Big oil companies, in an attempt to meet their corporate climate goals, are selling off their wells to smaller companies who are not on the radar as climate polluters. This looks great for the big oil companies, allowing them to show on paper how they are cutting their emissions, while raising money to invest in cleaner technologies. However, in reality, the smaller companies that they are selling to have made no commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and now the polluting is worse, only it’s out of the public eye.

Check out this NY Times article, to learn the whole story!

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