Youth cry out for action on climate control
Young people from all across the country gathered in Washington, DC to call attention to the need for more work to recognize and ght against Global Warming.
May 23, 2019
You cannot ignore the change in our climate, watching the news and seeing reports on massive hurricanes, flooding,and tornadoes.
Chicago just experienced 80 degree temperatures one day followed by a massive snow storm the following day. Even here in San Francisco and the state of California, which had been plagued with extreme drought is now drought free.
Climate change is a major topic among many people, and the younger generation is getting more involved.
According to NASA, “Earth’s climate is always changing. There have been times when Earth’s climate has been warmer than it is now. There have been times when it has been cooler. These times can last thousands or millions of years.”
NASA studies climate change by satellites, looking at the land, air, water, and ice. They study the energy that the sun emanates.
Studies show that the planet’s average surface temperature has risen 1.62 degrees fahrenheit since the late 19th century. The reason for the increase in temperature is from increased carbon dioxide emissions such as the mass burning of fossil fuels. If you look at all the cars on the road, the constant traffic congestion, one can not help but wonder what the carbon dioxide is doing to our climate. Our oceans have absorbed much of the increased heat, with the top 700 meters or about 2,300 feet of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. So what does this data mean?
An example of this change from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment shows Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, and Antarctica lost 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same years. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. Because of the ice melting, there has been an increase of water level, which has risen 8 inches in the last century.
With this data, the future seems pretty bleak. However, global activist, Greta Thunberg, inspired a world wide protest on the issue of global climate change. In 2018, while watching videos in class about plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears, and feeling as though the adults did not take these issues seriously, she felt that those who were here to protect her and her generation had failed.
The 16 year old Swedish activist set out to bring more attention to this issue. Against the wishes of her parents and without the support of her classmates, Thunberg sat outside Swedish parliament with her handmade banners trying to bring attention to this cause. She sat there all day long by herself.
The next day, she was joined by others who were concerned with the climate change. Her support grew. Within a year, Greta inspired the Youth 4 Climate movement. The global youth climate movement has spread around the globe.
On March 15, 2,052 events in 123 countries participated in the Global Climate Strike. One of the cities that participated in this march was San Francisco. The goal is to make not only their future, but their children’s future a place where they will be able to live without the need for protective suits.
“We are not going to sit and watch our futures being trashed because of their (adult population) addiction to the fossil fuel industry” said Tasmanian Toby Thorpe.
The United States government has taken some action in trying to combat climate change. This included new nationwide fuel- efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. States have their own separate laws, with California the state will cap greenhouse gas emissions from factories and power plants, and, eventually, emissions from vehicles.
Keeping the climate safe for humans and animals to live on is important, and the focus has shifted to not destroying the planet.
In August 2015, then President Obama spoke at the Glacier Conference in Anchorage, Alaska. President Obama stated, “Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now.”