Plant for the Planet kids pose with handmade gas label stickers on a cardboard pump.
  • Andy Clark
  • City Council Member Mike O'Brien and Plant for the Planet kids pose with handmade gas label stickers on a cardboard pump at City Hall.

Listen up, Seattle City Council. Kids between the ages of 8 and 14 are sick of all your legislating without their input. That's why this past Saturday, a group of unsettlingly bright Plant for the Planet child ambassadors held their own "State of the Planet" press conference at City Hall.

It wasn't enviro fluff. Not only did those kids do a better job of explaining climate science than most adults; they also asked Seattle lawmakers to add a label to gas pump nozzles describing the dangers of climate change.

"Two studies this week show humanity eating away at earth's life support system faster than any time in 10,000 years of civilization," 10-year-old Grace R. (her family didn't want her last name published) said.

Hearing that from a kid is supposed to weird you out.

Grace R., 9, delivered part of the groups State of the Planet speech.
  • Andy Clark
  • Grace R., 10, delivered part of the group's "State of the Planet" speech.

"According to scientists like Dr. [James] Hansen, to achieve 350 parts per million by the year 2100, we'll need to re-force 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere," said 13-year-old Gabe Mandell before quickly correcting and bonking himself on the head with the microphone. "Back into the ground, sorry!"

The kids also had a policy agenda. After they spoke, Rob Shirkey, executive director of a pro-gas label non-profit called Our Horizon, took the microphone and explained how labeling gas pumps might increase awareness and help change individual consumer behavior. Gas labels could complement taxing carbon emissions at the pump, he said.

"Does anyone want to guess what I mean when I say climate change is a problem of diffusion of responsibility?" Shirkey asked the crowd.

Grace R. raised her hand. "Maybe lots of people are saying it's not our fault, we didn't cause it so we don't have to turn it around?"

In December, the city of Berkeley, California voted to move forward with a gas labeling initiative, and San Francisco's currently mulling a similar proposal. Like labels on packs of cigarettes warn about the dangers of smoking, a gas label would put photos of endangered coral reefs, ecosystems, or kids at risk of asthma right on the nozzle.

City Council Member Mike O'Brien, who attended the presentation, pledged to be a liaison for the labeling initiative. He also warned it would require several steps, legal research, and community organizing. "For us to pass a law that requires gas stations in our cities to act a certain way it's going to require a fair amount of work," O'Brien said.