The Single Most Important Topic of Today and Tomorrow: Our Climate Crisis by Olivia Przydzial

The Single Most Important Topic of Today and Tomorrow: Our Climate Crisis

by Olivia Przydzial

As a child, I spent hours and hours in the woods. I collected rocks, I pressed flowers, I caught frogs with my bare hands. I would splash through streams and climb trees. I would draw caterpillars with cool patterns that I found in the wild. I chased after dragonflies, I waded into lakes, I brought wildflower bouquets home for my mom. This was my childhood. I spent more time in nature than I spent anywhere else. The environment, the earth, was, and very much still is, my true home.

On broader terms, this is true for all of us. We all live on this earth, we all depend on this planet for the life it sustains. We are all dependent on her for our survival, simply by the fact that we are all human.

On the 24-hour evolutionary clock of earth, humans have been around for less than three seconds. Imagine, that in less than three seconds, the most evolutionarily advanced species with the highest cognitive level of any organism on earth ever has calmly, knowingly nearly destroyed their only habitable home.

Climate change, or rather, the climate crisis, is no secret. We've been destroying our planet for decades. Check out this graph. The Industrial Revolution caused that huge spike at the end. Our atmosphere is flooded with CO2, which, in combination with the Greenhouse Effect, is like a nice warm, insulating blanket for a planet that is quite literally on fire.

     Now check this out (below). These pictures are from 1900 and 2014, so today, the red area is just wider. The last five years have been the warmest years on record, ever. Earth’s temperature has risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1880s. That is insane! Our planet is boiling! Look at 1900 - our planet is more or less normal, nothing too concerning. Now it’s 2014, and our planet is on fire! Do you see this red? Red means HOT. Our poles are on fire, and, in fact, our entire planet is on fire. Our planet is on fire!

And guess what? Our oceans are boiling too! Oceans naturally absorb atmospheric heat, but now that the atmosphere is getting hotter, so are our oceans! Look at this! Look at this! As our oceans are becoming hot tubs, with their temperatures predicted to rise 1-4 degrees Celsius by 2100, entire ecosystems are being disrupted as marine species fail to bear the extreme temperatures. Furthermore, our poor ice caps are melting like ice cubes in a pot of boiling water. People! We need to stop this! We’re only making matters worse for us in the long run!

Furthermore, our sea ice sheets are melting at unprecedented rates. Antarctica's rate of ice loss has tripled over the past decade. Antarctica loses almost 130 billion tons of ice every year, while Greenland loses almost 300 billion tons of ice every year. So many ecosystems and organisms depend on this ice for their survival. This sea ice is an also major reflector of light back into the atmosphere. Without it, not only will earth lose one of its major heat-reflective shields, but she will also lose all the life that depends on this ice.

One of the scariest and perhaps the most costly indicators of the earth’s climate crisis are extreme temperatures and weather. The last five years have been the hottest on record, and there has been a steady increase in extreme rainfall events across the globe. The earth has been seeing more and more natural disasters fueled by the rapidly changing climate such as heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and stronger, more frequent storms.

Another huge indicator of our planet’s climate crisis is rapid ocean acidification. Our oceans have become 30%, 30%, more acidic since the Industrial Revolution, namely due to the oceans’ absorption of our increased CO2 emissions. Our oceans are growing more acidic year by year, by about 2 billion tons per year. This acidification is making is rapidly killing off reefs, one of the planet’s biodiversity treasure troves, and all the species that depend on such reefs.

Greenhouse gases and rapidly rising temperatures have been causing massive glacial retreats around the world. Just look at these pictures. Look at where the glacier was, and where it is now. This is what we did.

Whether we are in a state of climate crisis is not a question. It is not up for debate. Hard, scientific evidence clearly illustrates the severity of our planet’s, and ultimately our, situation. The climate crisis is not an ‘opinion,’ political view, or 'hot topic.' It is our future.

So, I must ask, why is this not the only thing we talk about? This is our future, your future. What could possibly be so much more important that we don’t drop everything and fight to save our planet before it’s too late? What future are you studying for, if there won’t be a future for you at all? It is at this point where I am troubled. How could the most cognitively advanced, most intelligent species on the planet sit complacently, blindly amidst the fire? Our home is on fire! Why aren’t we acting like our home is on fire?!

The effects of our ignorance are and will be increasingly costly. The earth is getting hotter and hotter. The rising temperatures and intensifying weather events, such as heavy downpours, droughts, heat waves, etc., will make (and have been making) farming considerably harder. The harder it is to grow food, the more expensive your food will be. Natural disasters such as hurricanes will become stronger and more intense, reaping worse damage on areas that they pass through. The sea levels are projected to rise by 1-4 feet by 2100 as arctic ice quickly becomes ice-free. All Arctic sea ice will be gone in the summer before 2050. In combination with storms and high tides, many coastal areas will flood, destroying homes and taking lives. Our air quality is becoming so bad that asthma and respiratory diseases are on the rise. Diseases are running rampant through our food, water, and insects. Our water supplies are being contaminated, applying further stress on agriculture and putting our drinking water at risk. Wildfires have been occurring more often due to the higher temperatures and droughts caused by the climate crisis. Infrastructure is at an increased risk of flooding, natural disasters, and erosion. Ecosystems, particularly marine ones, are being overwhelmed by pollution and overfishing, putting one of our major sources of food at risk. Allergy season will be lengthened and intensified with increased pollen production caused by a longer growing season and higher CO2 levels and temperatures. The monetary losses of all the effects of the climate crisis even thus far are paramount. Climate change-triggered disasters have cost $320 billion in 2017 alone. There is no way that the earth’s climate crisis can’t affect you. We are all at risk. This is everybody’s fight.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations has reported that we have only 11 years to prevent an irreversible chain reaction that will inevitably destroy our planet. 11 years. Please allow that to sink in.

Our world is on fire. There is everything to lose. Why aren’t we panicking? Why are we going about our
days as if nothing is wrong? We can’t ignore the elephant in the room any longer! We have wasted way too
much time already. We need to panic.
Personally, I cannot wrap my head around this one aspect of the climate crisis. We know exactly what we need to do to stop the climate crisis for quite some time now. We have solutions! Saving our planet isn’t out of reach, by any means. We are not helpless. So why do we act so damn apathetic?

Refrigerant management to limit atmospheric heat emissions, onshore wind turbines to limit fossil fuel use, reduced food waste to stop wasting a third of all food produced, a dietary shift to vegetarian or veganism to stop consuming meat and dairy products, tropical rainforest restoration (reforestation), education and activism to push for climate reform in government, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing fossil fuel dependence and enhancing “sinks” responsible for storing such gases, and lifestyle adaptation. These are all solutions to the climate crisis. This is the good news - we know what we need to do and how to do it. It is now in our hands to go about making such changes.

The climate crisis has the capacity to destroy Earth. And it will, unless we step up to the plate to fight for her. We only have 11 years, but I have hope in us. If we all come together now, we can save our earth. It isn’t too late just yet. She is a planet, a future, worth fighting for. Let's step up.

Definition of New Years

by, Jenna Bargfrede

As the new year approaches around the corner one may begin to ask what does New Years mean? As a young girl I constantly wondered about the holiday. It always seemed trifling. What was the use of celebrating a thing that always comes? Birthdays will eventually end with a death. Christmas was a season of giving. Thanksgiving was there to show gratitude. Every holiday had some kind of purpose, but what was the purpose of celebrating the death of a year and the birth of a new one? After much thought I realized that there was a lot more meaning to the holiday than just the changing from one year to another. It means watching the ball drop, because no matter how stupid, how anticlimactic it is you always watch it. It means those family parties where you eat junk food/appetizers and watch a game or too. It means hanging out with friends, because they were there for you the entire year. It means new resolutions that will probably die in the first to weeks, but you try anyway because its a fresh slate and how can you pass that opportunity up. It means maturing. It means gathering the will to try again, to seize the opportunities that are given to you. It means the passing of time, moving on, change.

New Years celebrates life and how it continues indisputably. It celebrates the end of one year, the end of old, and transitions into the bright prospect of the new that is filled with opportunities. It celebrates your time on earth, because how else do we recognize a person's time on earth than by their years. New Years means many things, and I've begun to realize just why we celebrate it. So from the very bottom of my heart-- for perhaps the first time-- HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Southeast Asia Underwater by: Mikayla Flanz

      Global warming. A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. It's a term kids from the past few generations have grown up with, but has now evolved into "climate change". The same meaning as global warming, only including the monumental consequences that come with it.

Up until the past few years, as a global community we have yet to reap the effects of climate change, but now that we have; hurricanes, temperatures, sea levels, and many other events have sent us spiraling. But up until now, there has never been a real threat to our ways of life.

     According to science correspondent, Josh Gabbatiss's article from British newspaper, The Independent, as opposed to the inhabitants of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islands getting the next century to keep their native lands, new research published in the journal, Science Advances proclaims that the once promised one hundred years are now diminished to a few more decades. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, more and more of the green house gases such as, carbon dioxide and methane have been released, overall warming our planet. Although this "warming" has only come to about a two degree global increase, that change melted enough of the ice caps for there to already be devastating floods throughout these islands. The constant rising sea levels exert more water onto the low lying land, here the sea water is able to leach into the soil, spill into freshwater supplies, and decimate infrastructure and farm land. 

    Narrowing in on the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific, Science Advances illustrates the 70,000 natives of these chains of islands, where due to climate change and rising sea levels they will lose access to freshwater supplies, causing their farming industry to collapse, leaving a good portion of these inhabitants with little to no income or food. Along with the fact that, the rushing flood waters will sit in the dry walls of these houses for days at a time before clearing out and drying, therefore leaving mold in it's place. However, the authors also find that these issues will soon extend to neighboring islands such as the Maldives, Hawaii, and Seychelles, driving hundreds of thousands of people from their ancestral homes.

This is definitely the most selfish and least important reason to want the islands to stay right where they are, BUT... I have always wanted to travel to these places. These destinations are stunning, the landscape, the sites, the culture, to experience it all would be extraordinary. Stepping away from my traveling fantasies, there are more important matters...

Anyway, as someone who has always dreamed of traveling the globe all their life, to now see the world being picked apart and slowly demolished is devastating, but to the people living this out and losing the only home they have ever known must be like walking through their own never ending nightmare. 70,000 people. And that is just one chain of islands, what about the more densely populated Maldives or state of Hawaii. Where are all these people going to go? What are they going to do? Some of these people know nothing outside of their island chains, are they supposed to simply adapt from thousands of years of tradition overnight? 

Not to point fingers, but those who think climate change "doesn't exist" or is a "natural occurrence" are going to be very sorry some day, and that day may be coming soon. Even though this is happening thousands of miles away, across oceans, on a different continent, who is to say this can never happen to our coasts. Already, climate change is mauling our southern coasts, nothing permanent yet, but nothing is impossible, these people native to these Pacific islands probably thought that they would die in their home, as would their children, as had their parents, and relatives before them, all before their world was torn apart.

As a global superpower, we can not stand idly by while this is happening, sure it has not directly effected us yet, but eventually it will. So what if we have to give up certain things like oil and coal, and invest for a future in eco-friendly power systems, hundred of thousands of people will have to give up their land by the middle of the century. Maybe it might be too late to save some of the islands, but do we really want to see this underwater and abandoned? Gone?



Who really wants to see this gone?








Citations:Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent “Rising Sea Levels Will Leave Islands From the Maldives to Hawaii Uninhabitable.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 25 Apr. 2018

Images:
1. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/world/asia/floods-south-asia-india-bangladesh-nepal-houston.html
3. https://xdaysiny.com/top-10-tropical-islands-south-pacific/

The Summer Everything Changed~ By Julia McEllen

           Every summer I look forward to those gorgeous days on the beach, tanning under the sun and swimming in the ocean. I look forward to those lazy nights, sitting by the campfire and roasting marshmallows. I look forward to those girly days, getting my nails done with my mom and my sister, and going shopping as we slurp down our Starbucks iced teas. But all of that changed this summer, when my sister, Madelyn, went away to the University of South Carolina. Soon all those days became the "last time". The last time we would ever have a girly day during the school year with her. The last time we would ever be able to come home from the first day of school and tell each other all about it.

          My sister and I are both really close, and we love to do everything together. When those last few weeks of summer were approaching, I knew she would be leaving soon and it was hard. I knew we wouldn't be able to have movie nights or talk in her room for hours on the weekends. I knew she wouldn't be there to drive me to school or pass me in the hallway anymore. When the day finally came for her to leave, my brother, my mom and I packed up all of her things and drove ten hours down to South Carolina. We thought of it as a fun family road trip to end the summer, trying to distance the fact that Madelyn would not be coming home with us afterwards. Although it was hard for me to leave her, I knew it was even harder for my mom. The first day home without my sister felt strange. I remember waking up and going into my sister's room to see if she was awake. Walking in and then remembering she wasn't home was probably the strangest part. It took awhile for us to get used to the fact that we
won't be seeing Madelyn 24/7.

         Every summer after the first week of school my family and I go apple picking with my cousins. We meet at the orchards and after picking apples, they come back to our house for a sleepover. My cousin Kara is my age and she has an older sister Cailin who is my sister's age. Despite the fact that my brother is sort of the odd one out, we are all still really close. To not have Madelyn there for our summer apple picking tradition was hard for all of us.
        Although I won't be able to see her all of the time, we write letters and call each other almost every day. She will have the time to come home a lot in her school year which makes me really excited. I think knowing that she is happy and loves her college and her roommate makes it easier to handle the fact that she is so far away. Honestly, she couldn't have picked a better place to go to college because now when I go to visit her, I get to go to the beach!

Fallen Leaves

Fallen Leaves

by, Jenna Marie

*Forgive my voice. It's no Grammy Award winner I know (there's a reason I'm a violinist and not a part of a choir), but I thought the lyrics had to be put to music to really appreciate it. Also, please note that there are many out of tune notes and the background music was a last minute composition, so it's not exactly perfect nor professional recording material (I am very sorry for any mistakes that may have occurred. They're still kind of bothering me, not going to lie, but it was so painstaking to record and I/'m too lazy to do it again, so here goes)*

The leaves are gold this time of year

There’s nothing dark, nothing to fear

My mental walls are broken down

Before I know it I’m prepped to drown

‘Cause the leaves are bound to fall eventually

And when they fall they leave you cold and bare

With each drop feelings are freed from me

This time I’ll build my walls stronger I swear

But the leaves are gold this time of year

And there’s nothing dark, nothing to fear

I hang onto this golden rope

I hang on until I choke

For the leaves are bound to fall eventually

And when they fall they leave you cold and bare

Forevermore I shall be free

No more cycles of endless despair

For I’ve been fooled time and time again

That autumn will not ever end

But every time I’ve come to hold it dear

The leaves all fall and winter’s here

Well the leaves are gold this time of year

But there’s something dark, something to fear

For the leaves will fall down after all

I can’t trust them anymore

No One Cries in Summer by Jordan Bucenec

“No One Cries in Summer”

As the freeing feelings of Summer begin to subside,

one cannot help but to feel terrified.

From long cozy nights of joy and bliss,

dancing in the sun and receiving the rays’ warm kiss,

To endless, shivering days of heartache and somber,

forever wishing that summer could just last a little bit longer.

No one cries in summer.

Not when you’re knee deep in the sea,

Savoring the feeling of the soft waves against your legs and the smell of the ocean breeze.

No one cries in summer.

Not when you’re spending time with people you adore,

Making jokes and laughing until someone falls on the floor.

Even when you’re in pre-season,

Pushing yourself to the limit until you start wheezing.

No one cries in summer.

Not until you witness the crisp green leaves begin to change their colors.

Thoughts of school and expectations push you up against the wall,

And that’s the reason why everyone cries in fall.

There is always so much pressure to be the best.

“Do your homework and go to bed early, you better pass that test!”

School always begins to feel like a competition,

Trying to do homework from eight subjects in one night like a magician.

Everyone is always fighting for the highest score,

Is this school or the civil war?

If only everyone could be taught equally,

Each and every student would come to school gleefully.

No more ‘A’s, no more wrongs and rights,

No more ‘F’s, and to the end with sleepless nights!

I wish fall could feel like less of a brawl,

But until then, everyone cries in fall.