Climate Change Awareness By: Chimere Eziama

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the time, its impact affects almost every corner of the globe and is important for all people to be informed. By raising awareness, and fostering a mind set of eco friendly behaviors it is easier to more effectively combat climate change. Central to this effort is education, in schools it is important that students are taught about how climate change affects students' futures and students' lives now. Coach Kaddah, a social studies teacher at Hillgrove, talks about his efforts in school to reduce his ecological footprint, “Recycling in class is a big one. Lots of, you know, papers or extra papers, or things like that, that could easily be recycled.” “Reduce, reuse, recycle" is the waste people put into the environment. Trash does not disappear when it goes to the dump, it is piled into landfills where it does not decompose for more than 500 years according to Chariot Energy. It is easy for people to be unaware of how their habits enable climate change, but, “creating the ease of having eco-friendly processes, so that it's not something that you have to think about. It is something that is relatively easy and just becomes the norm.” (Kaddah) Hillgrove senior Gabrielle Ortega, talks about how much she knows about climate change, “I don't see many things online, but it's mostly about how the oceans and the coral reefs are dying.” In this time of technological advancement there are many avenues to find2 information about the environment. Sadly a lot of the things students see online are spreading little to no real information about climate change. It is not easy to find information at school ethier. When talking about what she hears about climate change at school Gabrielle says, “They touch on it very lightly.” (Ortega) Reign Fleming, an 11th grader at Hillgrove, states some people do not believe in climate change, “Because a lot of people just don't witness the effects of climate change firsthand. So they don't believe in its effects.” Though most people don't see climate change face to face, manypeople already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change, such as changing weather patterns causing more violent hurricanes that flood coastal cities. Joining groups that try to fight climate change can help these people. “You could join a nonprofit organization, or you could join a profited organization. You could do your own research. You could start just by yourself. ” (Fleming) Reign talks about, “specific events, like sports events, that use their money that they get from admission and parking that go towards things like cleaning up parks and stuff like that helps combat climate change.” Going to events like these are an easy way to become more involved in the fight against climate change. Reign mentions other ways to get involved, “I think that people should get more involved in environmental clubs because you should just care, like, it's your planet.” Students joining clubs like this does not only help the planet but it also helps spread awareness by showing students that there is a way to get involved in their community. Being involved is not helping the environment it is also just about being able to live on a clean planet, “You're gonna be here for a minute, like, you should just care about, like, how your what you do impacts it.” (Fleming).