Climate change is one of the most threatening concerns to our planet today.
Clara Walker (12) said, who is the president of Earth Club, knows best about climate change.
“It’s scary, one of the biggest threats to human kind and people seem not to care or blow it off,” Walker said.
A climate clock, which is located in New York City’s Union Square, consists of big numbers above and smaller numbers below. The numbers on the top are counting down until we burn through the carbon budget resulting in earth’s temperature going up with no return. The numbers on the bottom represent the percentage of global energy that is coming from renewable sources. If this number continues to rise, we will start to lose our corral reefs, arctic ice, and forests, along with many animals.
Climate change will result in more frequent wildfires, increase in wind, intense rainfall and droughts.
But why is this happening?
Climate change has been studied to the point where we have determined that it is happening due to the increase in human activity of burning fossil fuels. Humans are putting an estimated 9.5 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year by burning fossil fuels. Things such as driving gasoline powered vehicles, cutting down forests, wasting food, littering, and farming livestock contribute to this. The reason this is here is a wake up call for people who overlook things like this.
“The people who need to be pressured by it aren’t, but the smaller people who can’t do as much are trying the most,” Leah Dudley (11) said.
There are always people who don’t overlook these problems. The students in earth club express how they think that keeping the earth picked up and livable is important.
“All of them are unique individuals who all have something to give,” Sandy Pizzo, the sponsor of Earth Club, said.
Earth club helps pick up after football games, tear down invasive species, encourage people to vote, set up rallies and educate people about the Earth.
“I think a lot of people don’t know a lot about it because they are scared of it, but the opposite should be true. The more you know about it, the less scared you should be because you would know how to make a difference,” Logan Hinds (12) said.
All of us make a difference, good or bad. Do you want the clock to hit zero?
