Dear family and friends, 

I've been thinking about some things lately and I want to share my thoughts with you because it's very important to me.

The forests, the air, water and animals are being destroyed. I don't think that is the right way to treat our home, Earth. It bothers me that most of the things in people's lives are being tested on animals, harmful to the environment and just not healthy for anything.

Global warming is causing a lot of problems worldwide. I’ve learned that it is caused by the sun’s heat rays getting trapped in our atmosphere due to too much carbon dioxide and other gases that trap them there, making the climate change for the worse. Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with just the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Death from global warming could double to 300,000 in just 25 years. More than a million species could be extinct by 2050. And, for the first time, polar bears have been found drowned because they can’t find the ice that was once there.

Sometimes it takes disturbing things to make people change. This is deeply disturbing to me. I want to make changes and need your help. Here are some ideas I have found that we can do to make some changes.

	Move your thermostat down 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer, it will save one ton of Co2 a year.
	Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. They use 60% less energy and save 300 pounds of Co2 a year.
	Recycle! If we recycle half our garbage it will save 2,400 pounds of Co2 a year. Go to www.earth911.com for more recycling ideas.
	Wrap your water heater in an insulated blanket; it saves 1000 pounds of Co2 a year.
	Unplug your electronics—they drain energy even when not turned on.
	Wash your clothes in cold (or warm) water, instead of hot; it saves 500 pounds of Co2 a year.
	Buy as many organic products as possible.
	Properly maintain your automobile. When just 1% of car owners do that, nearly 1 billion pounds of Co2 are kept out of the atmosphere!

One of the things that really disturbs me is how many trees are being destroyed. Trees help us in so many ways. They keep our air and water clean. One tree absorbs one ton of Co2 in its lifetime! If you want to help trees, you’ll find some ideas at www.americanforests.com.       

I want to help make a difference. So, I'm starting with my family and friends. I want all of us and our home—our Earth—to be as healthy as we deserve to be.

This letter comes from my heart and I hope that it will touch yours. To find out more about global warming, visit any one of these sites: www.climatecrisis.com; www.globalgreen.org and www.checnet.org.

Remember: the more people we get involved, the bigger change we can make!

Kianne’s letter and efforts to raise awareness about the environment caught the eye of the Shaklee company. They sent a video crew to Alaska to spend a few days with her, and featured her on their 2007 Earth Day DVD.

 

Kianne Burgess is a 13-year-old homeschooling student. She loves ancient history, reading, writing stories, studying Tang Soo Do martial arts and helping animals and the environment.