Month: October 2024

As the cool brisk of autumn presses upon the oaks and they cry a silent retaliation, their leaves shift to a fiery orange.  As this cool brisk sinks among the lake and the icy water stills, the geese escape South. As this cool brisk conquers the air and the bugs find little warmth, the spider risks everything to sneak inside. As the cool brisk of autumn settles into our bones and the world alters, we flock to Spirit Halloween. 

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love decorating, going to pumpkin patches, carving pumpkins, finding multiple costumes, dressing up, and celebrating Halloweekend with all my friends. For many of us at Furman (and other college students), fall reminds us of everything Halloween embodies. However, for most of the world (the environmental and human world) this is not a joyous time. Halloween embodies the worst of our sustainability issues. The scariest part about Halloween is how it capitalizes off cheap consumerism and how vast the environmental injustices of this holiday are.

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Halloween consumerism is especially harmful for many different reasons. Since Halloween is only one or a few nights of the year people aren’t willing to invest a whole lot of money in costumes or Halloween decorations. Because of this demand for costumes and decorations, producers will use the cheapest method to produce the costumes. This causes the use of exploitive labor, sometimes even slave labor, and many environmental consequences (Kennedy, 2024).
Exploitive labor most frequently happens in other countries that don’t have a whole lot of oversight in production facilities. This lack of oversight often includes but is not limited to little to no child labor laws, a lack of an appropriate minimum wage, and unsafe working conditions causing the vast majority of fast fashion workers to live below the poverty line (Ross, 2021).

Fast fashion production also has very serious implications for the environment. Mass production of costumes and decorations causes so much pollution. Just in the US alone, it is estimated that 35 million Halloween costumes are thrown away annually. The production in itself releases a lot of greenhouse gas emissions as well as transporting it across the world (Center for Biological Diversity, n.d.). When making these seasonal items they also use the cheapest material possible which is primarily synthetic materials with many harmful chemicals that pollute the surrounding environment (Kennedy, 2024). These synthetic, often carcinogenic, materials pollute local streams affecting the communities living around production facilities. These materials in costumes specifically also break down over time so even if you do not throw the costumes away, they will still cause waste (Kennedy, 2024). 

While costumes and decor cause a lot of waste during this time, so does the innocent task of carving pumpkins. When carving a pumpkin and scooping the guts out of it, it gets thrown away. Then, after carving the pumpkin is finished and it has been sitting out for a while and it begins to rot, it gets sent to the landfill. Pumpkin waste is particularly harmful because when it gets broken down in these landfills it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more harmful than CO2. Every year, nearly 80% of all pumpkins that are bought are just thrown away. In the UK alone, 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins get thrown away. Now in the US, since around 80% of pumpkins are wasted, imagine how many of the 900,000 tonnes of pumpkins produced are being thrown away. Pumpkin waste every year around Halloween has a haunting effect on global warming (World Economic Forum, 2019).

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When fall hits and we all get so excited for Halloween, we must remember the stark realities of this holiday for the rest of the world. As we galavant around on October 31st in our costumes worrying about getting good Instagram pictures– there is a person across the world, getting ready to work 14 hours for an unlivable wage in conditions so dangerous, that any slip-up can result in a lost limb or death. As you get ready and put on your Halloween costume you ordered off of Amazon, Shein, Temu, Fashion Nova, Zara, etc…– a little fish, a world away, is trying to do his daily business of protecting the coral formation he has claimed as his, with a little piece of plastic lodged in his gill impairing his ability to breathe. As you walk past a perfectly crafted Jack-o-Lantern this week– someone is sitting amongst rubble following a climate-induced hurricane trying to cope with their entire life having been destroyed. This is a spooky season indeed.

This is the harsh reality of Halloween however, I still celebrate and cherish it deeply. There are many ways you can sustainably celebrate Halloween!

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For my Halloween costumes I always thrift and make them! This year at the Cottage we are throwing a little Greenbelt Halloween party and we all are being Minecraft characters. This year, we are only wearing what we have in our closets with cardboard heads we made. My other costumes are pitbull, a leopard and a siren. For pitfall, I just used my mock trial suit, pantyhose, and eyeliner! For the leopard, I am doing a makeup-intensive costume so I do not have to order as many things. Finally, for my siren costume that I am most excited about, I am making a beaded top from scratch. I made the outline with chains from Michaels and the beads I had left over from

when I made beaded curtains! I also got some more beads from a second-hand craft store, Recraft in Greenville, that is super helpful for DIY Halloween costumes. For our Halloween decorations, we made a lot of

ours and brought many from our homes. We didn’t buy any of the commercial Halloween decorations!

We also carved pumpkins! We did this and made really yummy pumpkin seeds and composted the pumpkins. If you want to carve pumpkins at Furman without contributing to waste I urge you to bring them over to the Furman farm and compost them. This substantially limits the amount of greenhouse gasses that it releases into the atmosphere and it goes into the yummy food we eat at the dining hall. 

There are so many ways to celebrate Halloween sustainably! I have been able to celebrate all of the seasonal traditions while making minimal impact.

 

 

These are some of the final costumes!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The most glaring issue of sustainability that I’ve seen in my day-to-day living at Furman is the overuse of “recyclable” paper cups for coffee or tea in the dining hall. More specifically, people use disposable cups and then sit back down at a table rather than leaving. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if they were the only option available, but reusable mugs are literally inches to their right at the tea/coffee station.

The biggest problem stems from the production of these paper cups, these cups are dipped in a tiny layer of polyethylene or, in other words, regular plastic. The plastic surrounding the paper cups makes them excruciatingly difficult to dispose of sustainably. The single-use nature of these cups also promotes a culture of disposability within the dining hall, as I’ve seen people use them once and then throw them away instead of using the reusable mugs directly to their right or left. This “culture of disposability” increases the amount of waste generated by Furman and undermines the tautological nature of our sustainability practices.

A Commons article by Naman Bajaj states that “99.75% of disposable coffee cups can’t be recycled.” he then further speculates that, on average, America uses 146 billion coffee cups a year. The process by which these coffee cups could be recycled is, according to Foodprint, “both complex and expensive, [so] the cups are routed to incinerators or landfills for final disposal.” The point is that in the Dining Hall, they are marketed as “sustainable” and “recyclable” as they have green leaves printed on the outside of the cup, so people give them no second thought when using them. When in reality, they are hugely detrimental to Furman’s sustainability efforts. On top of this, hot beverages can cause styrene to leak from the plastic in these cups, “which has been linked to a host of health problems from impaired concentration and nervous system effects to cancer.” (Foodprint) I think it would be in good practice to dramatically decrease our use of these items, as there seems to be no benefit to them.

Relating this issue back to my experience living in the Greenbelt Community, I think because of the education about sustainability practices within this program as a whole has allowed me to be more cognizant of issues like this. Flashback to freshman year, the environmental impact of disposable cups would be the last thing on my mind. I think if people on campus knew the true consequences of using them, I think their use would be extremely diminished. Or even just offering them as only a to-go item and instead make people use the reusable mugs already out for use. Living in the Greenbelt has opened my eyes and ears to issues like this and the problems they pose from a local and systemic perspective. It’s important to bring education about topics like these to the majority of the student body, as most issues like this can be neutered by simple tweaks, by literally just using less.

 

Works Cited

Link, Kristen. “The Massive Impact of Your Takeout Coffee Cup.” FoodPrint, 11 Dec. 2020, foodprint.org/blog/environmental-impact-coffee-cup/.

 

 

While driving back to campus from work last week, a billboard caught my eye. It read, “Save water. Shower tomorrow.” This took me aback, because I don’t think I have ever in my whole life witnessed an encouragement to take less showers. In America at least, the rhetoric is always that you can never be clean enough. Bodily odors are looked down upon, and greasy hair is “gross”. Not showering is associated with several negative stereotypes, and many people I know feel like their day is incomplete without a shower. It is estimated that 2/3 of American adults shower daily. In fact, most people will swear by the benefits of this approach to hygiene, like containment

of body odor, removing dirt from the skin, cleansing of bacteria, and improved confidence. There are also general mental health benefits of having a routine to stick to, and many people use showers to wake themselves up in the morning or wind down in the evening. While these advantages are certainly something to think about, I couldn’t help but wonder what this billboard was getting at.

 

In addition to common daily showers, the average shower in the US lasts for 8 minutes, using 16 gallons of water, according to . This adds up to about 1 trillion gallons of water used yearly just for showers. Not only is that a lot of water, but it is also not necessarily good for you to be showering daily. Excessive showers is linked to dry skin. Dry skin can cause an increased amount of bacteria to be introduced into your body through the cracks, as well as a weakened immune system due to all the “good” bacteria being routinely washed off.

During the few days we were out of power here on campus due to hurricane Helene, I found myself wishing for a shower. The temperature was getting up there due to the lack of air conditioning. In the cottage, we did have access to indoor lighting because of our skylights, but we still needed our doors and windows wide open. Even with this attempt at ventilation, it was still getting hard to sit, unentertained, in a sauna. This period of time had me welcoming a cold shower (as if I had a choice – we had no hot water). While we do have regular access to hot water and air conditioning now, a cold shower need not be a temporary product of a situation. 

Not showering daily may sound extreme to some, and for certain skin and hair types, is just not doable. However, taking colder showers can be a great way to lessen the environmental impact of a person’s need to shower daily. This can encourage shorter showers due to less comfort, in addition to decreasing carbon emissions. Credibly Green reports that using cold water as opposed to hot water can save up to 3 times the amount of emissions. And you don’t have to jump straight into a cold shower. Decreasing the temperature just a little bit at a time can be helpful in acclimating, and a warm shower is better than a boiling hot one!

Are cold showers definitely not for you? That’s understandable. Another way to reduce daily water consumption is called the “navy shower.” These showers, which originated on naval ships where water resources were scarce, are actually not as unglamorous as they might sound. All you do is turn the water off in between steps of your shower!

This method uses only about 3 gallons of water total per shower, compared to the 16 gallon average in the US.

 

The use of reasoning like this is vital to creating environmental allies. If you present environmental protection as a hassle or work-intensive, people are less likely to make changes. This is exactly what WildAid has done with the billboard I saw, as well as many other initiatives out there, a gallery of which is available at https://www.theenvironmentexcuse.org/media/.

Contrary to the title, I do not actually believe in the merit of bad hygiene. However, mindful hygiene practices and simple habit changes are a stepping stone to a sustainable life and future. At the end of the day, we know our own needs best, so the routine that works for you is the one that you should follow. Even so, we should always be open to trying out a new approach, especially if there are possible benefits to it!

 

Works cited:

Media Gallery – The Environment Excuse. (2023, February 6). https://www.theenvironmentexcuse.org/media/‌

Shmerling, R. (2019, June 28). Showering daily — is it necessary? – Harvard Health Blog. Harvard Health Blog. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/showering-daily-is-it-necessary-2019062617193

(2023, February 16). Hot vs Cold Showers. Credibly Green. https://www.crediblygreen.com/2023/02/16/environmental-impact-of-hot-vs-cold-showers/

Stonestream. (2022, October 11). What is a navy shower?. StoneStream UK. https://www.stone-stream.com/post/what-is-a-navy-shower?srsltid=AfmBOorXpaPTDH4bKUL9594S5qtXXdUoBd3twNbLpK619tPzVrbGlnDL

 

Growing up I had a front porch. It wasn’t the coolest one on the block, and was by no means the most interesting, but it got the job done. When I moved to another part of the neighborhood in 1st grade, I got new neighbors, a higher squirrel population, and a cool alleyway behind the backyard, but unfortunately no porch. Fast forward to the current year, living in the Greenbelt cabin, has made me realize what I’ve been missing the past 11 years of my life. Porches and other outdoor sitting areas encourage you to spend more time around nature and use less electricity. As such, in this blog I’m going to articulate what exactly makes porches not only appealing, but quite sustainable as well.

As humans, we all want control in our lives, right? It seems to be the cause of much of our problems and, well, solutions to those problems as well. The temperature is 96 degrees out so what do you do? Stay in shade, drink more water, and maybe take the opportunity to go for a swim. Or retreat to your nice insulated home and crank the AC till the windows frost over. In our age of endless solutions, its much easier to pick the second option, and take control of your environment. What’s easy to forget, however, is the damages that much of these solutions can cause. Air conditioning, despite its easy fix to a hot climate, releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the environment. According to an article from UN Environmental Program, AC accounts for 20% of a given building’s power consumption. Not only this, but they are accompanied by the electricity costs of all of your other home appliances and environmental regulators, such as lighting, electronics, and so on. We know that these appliances all contribute to energy consumption as well as climate change, but we still use them out of a need for control over our environment. What am I proposing then, that we should all go live outside and surrender ourselves to the elements in order to minimize our impact on the environment? While this may be an appealing idea to some of you out there (I’m looking at you backpackers), it is simply not viable or particularly comfortable for the vast majority of people. What we all can do, however, is simply spend more time outside, something that a porch makes incredibly convenient to do.

 

  –  The Greenbelt Cabin Porch

 

Spending your time outside instead of in the enclosed comfort of your home doesn’t just benefit the environment, it also can greatly benefit your physical and mental health. According to an article from UC Davis Health, being outside and engaging with nature “has a positive effect on our bodies by reducing cortisol levels, muscle tension, and demands on our cardiovascular systems.” Not only can being outside reduce stresses to our physical and mental wellbeing, but it can also help your body produce extremely vital vitamin D. According to an article from the National Institute of Health, in the US “almost one out of four people have vitamin D blood levels that are too low or inadequate for bone and overall health.” Spending more time outside can help you reap the natural benefits of the sun’s rays, helping you to regulate your health and wellbeing.

There are many reasons why one may prefer the inside at a given time to the outdoors. It could be too cold, windy, or your neighbor’s car alarm could be wailing nonstop. Just being outside means you are giving up some of your control over your environment, and well, that is what makes it so appealing. In an age where we have increasing control over all aspects of our lives, it is refreshing to embrace the fact that in the natural world, we are not in control. Sure, our houses may remain the same temperature and never blow our hats off with a gust of wind, but the moment you step outside, anything can happen. It is because of this contrast with the stability of the rest of the house, that the porch has won me over. Not only is it healthy and sustainable to spend your time outside, but the porch provides a space to realize how connected we are with the environment, despite how distant it can feel behind closed doors.

 

 

References:

Air conditioners fuel the climate crisis. can nature help?. UNEP. (n.d.-b). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/air-conditioners-fuel-climate-crisis-can-nature-help#:~:text=How%20does%20cooling%20contribute%20to,double%20burden%20for%20climate%20change.

UC Davis Health. (2024, October 1). 3 ways getting outside into nature helps improve your health. health. https://health.ucdavis.edu/blog/cultivating-health/3-ways-getting-outside-into-nature-helps-improve-your-health/2023/05

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Office of dietary supplements – vitamin D. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-Consumer/

People who don’t enjoy the gym don’t understand the way exercise quiets your brain. When you’re lifting weights, you have no choice but to focus on what’s directly in front of you. Either you complete your movement or drop forty-five pounds of iron on your face.

For me, even preparing for the gym is calming. I’ll come back from class in a whirlwind of agitation– and I’m sure anyone who sees me during that time would laugh. My phone’s blowing up: sorority business, club meetings, emails. There’s an exam I bombed in my backpack, and across the lake, a townie kid is screaming at the top of her lungs. I nearly trip on the stairs to my house.

But by the time I’m scooping my preworkout in the kitchen, that’s all long gone. For one hour, six days a week, I don’t have to think about anything but the feel of a barbell in my hands.

I’m not necessarily alone in this feeling: between scientific advancements and social media, gym culture is now more popular than ever. With this comes a rise in supplement use– synthetic vitamins and chemicals meant to enhance your workout experience.

Among the most popular supplements for gym-goers are preworkouts. If you’re unaware of how pre works, think of it as an energy-boosting Kool-Aid mix. Chances are, though, you’ve at least heard of it– because in 2023, the global industry was valued at over $19 billion.

Unfortunately for gym-goers, synthetic preworkout is anything but carbon neutral. Most of the ingredients in pre are amino acids. These chemicals occur naturally in the body; however, in supplemental form, must be produced via chemical processing. Production is energy-intensive and factory waste can pollute environments and even create biohazards. The vast majority of chemical processing plants in America run on fossil fuels, and they are responsible for close to 20% of the country’s GHG emissions (“Ammonia Production”).

Most preworkouts contain these 5 synthetically-produced amino acids: beta-alanine, anhydrous caffeine, citrulline, tyrosine, taurine, and creatine monohydrate. Whether it’s blocking the receptors in your brain responsible for fatigue or increasing oxygen delivery to your muscles, each and every one enhances performance. Chemical production processes for each and every one of these chemicals requires “high temperatures and pressures”– in other words, they’re extremely energy-intensive. (“Advances in the synthesis of β-alanine.”)

The waste from these processes can also be hazardous. Creatine phosphate turns to creatinine (a natural waste product) in the body, but creatine monohydrate has to be burned to be disposed of. This process of burning actually releases hazardous chemicals, which can affect both workers and the environment.

All of these supplements are helpful– even essential– to anyone who goes to the gym on a daily basis. But between the chemicals, dye, flavoring, and plastic packaging of preworkout, it’s entirely unsustainable. On top of this, pre can actually expire, becoming less effective the longer it sits. Its shelf life is only about a year, and once opened, it is generally recommended to use within 6 months. 

Worse, the environmental impacts of the industry have yet to fully be studied. In fact, preworkout is so new that its effect on the body isn’t fully known. The amount of caffeine per scoop typically ranges between 150-300mg, and there’s a common idea among hardcore gym-goers of “double-scooping” or even combining it with an energy drink. The effects of this intake, along with a cocktail of chemical powders, have not been studied longitudinally.

But if the entire industry is an environmental and public health risk, why buy into it? Some ideas to supplement are black tea or coffee and a “quick carb”– a slice of toast, a banana, or another light source of energy. Better yet, endeavor to eat clean. All of these amino acids are either already in your body or can be found in whole foods.

Easier said than done, right? How am I, for example, supposed to eat healthily? I’m in the PDen so often the workers know me by name. Why go to the dining hall when I have literal energy in a carton? I argue sustainability is not just about the environment– it’s about a lifestyle that you are able to support. And personally, preworkout significantly enhances my gym experience.

But the purpose of this article is to bring awareness to the preworkout industry, which is the first step to solving the problem. Choosing to opt out of synthetic preworkout is a solution, but at the root, consumers are not to blame. It’s the companies mass-producing it.

At the end of the day, it’s okay to stick with synthetic preworkout. But when a plume of smoke rises out of the tub as you open it, keep in mind its artificiality and remember that just because it’s the easiest way to get energy, it might not be the best.

 

Works Cited

“Global Pre-Workout Supplements Market.” Yahoo Finance, 16 Oct. 2023, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-pre-workout-supplements-market-180000537.html.

“Ammonia Production.” Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy, 2001, https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/773773.

“Advances in the synthesis of β-alanine.” National Library of Medicine, 2023. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10639138/.

            On a steady note, the temperature is rising, and the once warm summers become unbearably hot. In the desert of Las Vegas, Nevada, the temperature reached an all new peak of 120 degrees and it is doomed to rise. In the South climate change is not only pushing forth a rise in temperature, but an increase in the number of natural disasters, contributing to events such as hurricanes like Helene and Milton. The irony of such a fact is that the natural human response to a rise in temperature is most always to combat such with AC. Whilst the home gets cooler the repercussions of constant AC usage are counteractive.

 

The basic actions of AC units aren’t particularly detrimental to the climate, they literally make the surrounding area cooler, but to do so they require power, and that requirement and production prove to be 

negative for the ozone layer. Measuring greenhouse gas emissions, the almost 2.5 billion number of AC units in the world contribute to about 3% of total emissions, and whilst 3% may not seem a lot, in the grand scheme of things, each minute percent counts. Especially with future projections, with the exponential rise in homeowners, and buildings, since in 2050 the number of units could rise to at least 5.5 billion, attacking this issue before it becomes too large to handle could prove to be more important than we could imagine in terms of reversing climate change.

 

 

Just ignoring the need for climate control within the house, especially for those in desert climates, isnt the answer and could lead to even more peril, so instead what is needed are sustainable, and climate friendly alternatives. One means of curbing the constant usage of electricity is to make sure that the energy used is being used in the most efficient way possible. In a study of AC efficacy in Ghana, over 85% of units ranked at the lowest level of efficiency on the SEER grading scale. Through fixing the crisis of poorly efficient units, less power would go to waste, greatly reducing the power needed to be produced. In the context of hot climate areas, such as deserts, researchers from McGill University, UCLA, and Princeton have found an inexpensive and sustainable alternative roofing material that radiates heat away from the building to regulate the heat inside. With this new radiating roofing, the building would contain less of a need for AC to regulate temp, and reduce the power used. Another alternative for the average, consumer 

purchased AC unit would be to invest in newer systems, rather than to keep to older model. One of the large issues with AC systems is that they tend to leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants which can be up to 2,000 times or potent and detrimental to the ozone layer. With new investments in manufacturers such as Daikin and Gree which have developed prototypical models that not only are more efficient, but use less harmful refrigerant, and systems that use alternative cooling techniques such as drying the air.

 

Taking in the collection of what has been stated, AC units if not addressed, could drive the climate into higher temperatures, instead of lower. Through addressing the efficiency, and enhancing the use of alternative cooling methods (i.e. drying air, roofing materials) the power usage could be lowered enough the help reverse climate change, and sustainably cool the earth. For future research, we must ask what must the government do to help, how could we mandate climate safe procedures, and how can we dig out of the hole we created.

Works cited:

Guardian News and Media. (2021, September 3). How to make Air Conditioning Less of an environmental nightmare. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/03/air-conditioning-climate-crisis-clean-tech-solutions

Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2024, July 16). Air conditioning causes around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. how will this change in the future?. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/air-conditioning-causes-around-greenhouse-gas-emissions-will-change-future#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20air%20conditioning%20in,emissions%20when%20refrigerants%20are%20included.

ScienceDaily. (2023, October 30). A sustainable alternative to air conditioning. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231030110826.htm

Cold and scared, I gripped the side of a National Guard truck as we made the alarming exodus from our flooded home to shelter at the Houston Convention Center.

With water everywhere, and not a single point of illumination, I stared out at the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

At 13, I was already a veteran of flooding. At age 11, my Houston neighborhood experienced a 100-year flood — an extreme that was supposed to happen once in 100 years. (Leinfelder, (2018)

That day school was canceled so my sisters and I put on our rain boots and went outside to play in the water. I wasn’t too concerned. I was glad to have gotten this 100-year flood out of the way so young. 

But a year later another 100-year flood happened. (ClicktoHouston, 2019) This time our red Ford Focus was submerged in the street and water got into the engine. I was upset and confused.

“Why is it called a 100-year event if it happens every year?” I asked my parents.

A year later, Hurricane Harvey hit, my dad woke me up at 5 a.m and as I stumbled out of bed, I felt water under my feet. The water had finally made it past our front door. 

We moved to our living room and placed anything we could up high where we thought the water could never reach it. But the water kept rising.  I was scared for my grandparents, who lived next door. How could we transport two diminutive elders down a street filled with over 4 feet of murky water? 

Around 11 a.m., we moved to the second story of our neighbor’s house. I watched out the window as my elementary school across the street was submerged. The water kept climbing. Around 5 p.m., we were evacuated by open-air National Guard trucks. 

My phone battery was running out, but I needed to understand what was happening to me. 

I googled Hurricane Harvey, finding a news report that said something called climate change would continue to worsen floods (Gibbens, 2018). 

But surely nothing could be worse than this?  

After a restless night sleeping on cots with hundreds of people at the convention center downtown, the water subsided enough for us to leave, but we couldn’t go home. The water damage to our house was too severe. We moved into temporary housing while it was torn down and rebuilt. 

After two years I finally got to go home. 

It feels like I can’t outrun climate extremes. Three years ago, in February 2021, a historic freeze hit Texas, knocking out power for a week. I found myself sleeping next to my grandparents’ fireplace just to stay warm.

Now, at 20, one of the few places I thought might be safe from climate disasters — where I had hoped to settle down for the long term — has just been devastated by a hurricane, the likes of which the area has never experienced. (Schaper, 2024) No matter where I go, it seems like there’s no escape.

I can’t sit back and be passive when it comes to climate change. Not when it’s getting worse. 

Things are bad now but they’ll be worse for the next generation. When we burn fossil fuels it traps pollution in the atmosphere causing our world to overheat, which in turn exacerbates extreme weather. (IPCC 2021) We have to do something about it. Later is too late.

Children born today are already facing disproportionate increases in floods, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and crop failures due to climate change. Analysis published in Science warns that today’s newborns will face on average seven times more severe heatwaves during their lives than their grandparents (Thiery, 2021).

Last year, I became an intern for the nonpartisan, volunteer-powered nonprofit Citizens’ Climate Lobby and learned how to speak up for the future I want. One where all elected officials, regardless of party, enact laws that hold big corporate polluters accountable and work to prevent climate extremes from worsening.   

It lit a fire under me to become a climate voter in 2024 and talk about what this means for me through the Environmental Action Group and by being a Greenbelt student at Furman. Every candidate vying for my vote should outline real and effective solutions to reduce climate pollution. 

When young people like me think we have no voice and give up, when we don’t tell leaders what we want or sit elections out, we fail to hold our members of Congress accountable. That’s something we have the power to change. 

References:

Click2Houston Digital Staff. (2019, April 16). Look back at Houston’s 2016 Tax Day Flood. Click2Houston. https://www.click2houston.com/weather/2019/04/16/look-back-at-houstons-2016-tax-day-flood/

Gibbens, S. (2018, January 4). Climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/climate-change-study-hurricane-harvey-flood

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2021). Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, et al., Eds.). Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Leinfelder, A. (2018, May 24). Remembering 2015’s Memorial Day flooding in Houston. Houston Chronicle. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Remembering-2015-s-Memorial-Day-flooding-in-12943900.php

Schaper, D. (2024, October 1). Hurricane Helene brings heavy rain and flooding, raising more questions about climate change. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/01/nx-s1-5133530/hurricane-helene-rain-flooding-climate-change

Thiery, W., Lange, S., Rogelj, J., Schleussner, C. F., Gudmundsson, L., Seneviratne, S. I., et al. (2021). Intergenerational inequities in exposure to climate extremes. Science, 374(6564), 158-160. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi7339