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Adolescent mental health has long been under-addressed and under-resourced This past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced us all to social distance and move our lives online for the safety of ourselves and our communities, Connecticut’s students have quietly suffered. Health agencies report that feelings of isolation and anxiety among youth are at a record-high, and while the pandemic and other stressful world events have exacerbated these struggles, they are not new for many students.  Sarah McKinnis Adolescent mental health has long been an under-addressed and under-resourced issue. CDC...

A Quakerly justice reform appeal of conscience I’m a Quaker.  I sometimes have trouble explaining what that means to people.  Partly that’s because, unlike most other religions, Quakerism doesn’t have much of a hierarchical structure, so to speak.  Long ago, before I began to know the Society of Friends (our “formal” name), I asked a beloved elder in Wilton Meeting to explain to me how Quakers are “organized,” and he broke into peals of laughter! Madeleine Wilken And Quakerism is based on each member’s personal experience of God, Spirit, the seed of Light within – the me...

Strong bipartisan support for electric vehicles Four out of five Connecticut voters support the direct sale of electric vehicles. It’s time to listen to them. For years, Connecticut has prohibited electric vehicle manufacturers from selling their cars directly to consumers in the state. Ending the prohibition on direct sales will allow us to help the environment while creating new jobs —as it already has in states where direct sales are permitted. The unintentional policy whiplash of incentivizing electric vehicle sales on the one hand, while punishing consumers for exercising their choic...

No time to waste for our health care workers The shared experience of the COVID pandemic, now in its second year, has at times shown the potential to defuse the toxic polarization that divides our nation. The indiscriminate harm that the airborne COVID virus inflicted on millions of people and families did, at times, bring us back to the basics of protecting our communities, of looking out for each other, and working together to guard public health. U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney Although some of that consensus has eroded in the face of “mask wars” and vaccination conspiracies, at least one unify...

Young people speaking with legislators at Sunrise CT's 2021 Earth Day event. Photo credit Nick Barta. As a 17-year-old Connecticut climate activist, I spend a lot of time trying to influence policies, so that our state takes bold climate action. At the beginning of the 2021 Connecticut legislative session, a couple other activists and I had a meeting with two members of the state legislature about a bill we wanted to introduce, which would prevent Connecticut from continuing to build new fossil fuel infrastructure. The meeting wasn’t going well, which, honestly, was not unexpected. Sena Waz...