Senior Speech: There is no "Planet-B" How many of you read or watch the news everyday? How many of you look at the news headlines everyday? For those of you who don’t, I encourage you to start to do so. For over eight weeks, wildfires have been ravaging through the west coast, devastating California, Oregon, and more. With at least eighty-six dead and many many more injured or displaced from their homes, the fires are relentlessly burning, scarcely responding to fire fighters efforts to halt them. Although there has always been a fire season, both in 2019 and now 2020, the west coast has endured two of the worst years for wildfires to date. Though due in part to a lack of forest management, the escalation to such horrific and long lasting fires is primarily due to human bred climate change. Not a new phenomenon, climate change has been a topic of discussion for the last thirty years, beginning when the potentially disruptive impact of heat-trapping emission from burning fossil fuels became front page news. Even though it has been a ubiquitous issue for the last three decades, climate change is not yet a universally accepted truth by all of our society, and thus, is not looked at as one of the most prevalent and important problems we are currently facing. That said, as time continues to progress, it is of utmost importance that we take action before it is too late.
California’s wildfire record dates back all the way to 1932. Wildfires have burned naturally in California for decades due to the dry summer heat and abundance of vegetation. Some caused by natural factors such as a lightning strike, the resulting burning is a natural occurrence that would happen with or without the presence of humans. However, the top ten worst fires in California to date have actually occurred since the year 2000, six of them taking place just this year with the frequency and intensity of said events being unprecedented. According to Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, “this climate-change connection is straightforward: warmer temperatures dry out fuels. In areas with abundant and very dry fuels, all you need is a spark”. Reaching temperatures of 121˚ in Los Angeles and an astronomical never before seen temperature of 130˚ in Death Valley, California is experiencing a massive heat wave due to a changing climate. Mixed with California’s annual dry season, the conditions are perfect for an overwhelming blaze to take over, and recently, nature has done just that. In connection, in Australia of late 2019 and early 2020, due to progressing climate change, bushfires decimated large areas on the southern coast in Victoria and New South Wales. In their testimony to ABC News in February 2020, father and daughter Shaun and India’s surrounding land burst into flames. India describes, “I just couldn’t imagine losing our house so I was prepared to fight as long and as well as I could''. Shaun also recounts, “The way it seems to be going and the frequency of fires and the intensity. It was quite like hell really''. 4.14 million acres have already burned this year in California alone. In order to understand why modern day wildfires have become so extreme so quickly, one must first understand the idea born thirty some years ago, climate change. An indisputable fact, our climate is changing and not for the better. With a rising sea level, an increase in hurricanes and other natural disasters, and annually higher temperatures, (which our sweltering Minnesota summers can attest to), its effects are indisputable. “Climate change is moving faster than we are – and its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across our world”. This is a quote from the World Meteorological Organization’s coverage of a UN general assembly which was spoken by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the 27th of September, 2018. Later in his speech, Mr. Guterres goes on to reveal that, within the past two decades, we have experienced eighteen of the warmest years since 1850, when record-keeping began. Despite the pleas of experts for years and years, little action has been taken to help slow or ultimately prevent the devastation we are soon to endure if we continue on as we have. Mr. Guterres goes on to plead, “We need greater ambition and a greater sense of urgency. We must guarantee the implementation of the Paris Agreement. It has immense potential to set us on the right course, but its targets -- which represent the bare minimum to avoid the worst impacts of climate change -- are far from being met”. Written two years ago, in the ever evolving world of climate change, this assessment is far outdated. Today, November 4th, the United States has officially withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. So, what is the solution? What can we do as a society to help? What can I, one piece of the larger collective, do to help prevent a catastrophe? First and foremost is advocacy. Voicing your concerns either on social media or to your local representatives is the single biggest way to make an impact on climate change. According to Dr. Adrian Rubin, a meteorological scientist known for speaking out against the dangers of fossil fuels, “The importance of educating others about climate change cannot be overstated in our modern society. There are many platforms for us to utilize that can allow us to spread our message easily. Whether you use word of mouth or social media, there are always ways to educate others on what climate change is doing to our planet”. Additionally, she notes voting as another key factor. By putting those who are willing to fight into office, we are bettering the life of our planet for years to come. Yes, industry and agriculture may be two of the largest contributors to climate change, and, although they should be reformed to reflect a more carbon neutral society, electricity and transportation are also two of the most considerable leading causes. What that means is, even though we may not realize, everyday people like you and me have a significant impact on the planet. I’m not saying you all need to go home today and become vegans and put solar panels on your house. Yes, these two things would also be beneficial; however, a task as simple as washing clothes using cold water instead of warm or upcycling a piece of furniture instead of buying something brand new possess a much more meaningful impact than one might think. As the members of gen Z, an up and coming generation soon to be the new world leaders, it is essential we stay informed and proactive with climate change. With today’s political tensions and the fears and uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world seems to be spinning further and further out of our hands. The wildfires on the west coast are not an isolated event, rather, the culmination of years of overconsumption and climate neglect. Now is the time, will we succumb to complacency and idleness or make positive change to not only better our own lives today, but ensure the quality of our planet for generations to come? While many have the topic for their senior speech decided upon by their freshman year of high school, I cannot say I was apart of that majority. When tasked with coming up with our topic during class, I began to feel an immense amount of internal pressure surrounding my choice. It was my one chance to share a topic of great importance with the entire Blake upper school community, and I wanted my speech reflect that. In searching for inspiration online, I stumbled upon a news article describing the severity of the wildfires on the West coast. Immediately, I knew what I would write, and eventually, speak about.
I have always been deeply concerned with the status of our planet and climate change. In the eight grade, I and a partner did our Influential project about global warming. Four years later, not much progress was happening the world of climate change, and if anything, our climate was negatively progressing at an ever more rapid rate. To that effect, in combining my passion for the environment with the active wildfires on the West coast, I decided to speak about climate change with a focus on current events. Senior Program: Covid-19 and the Justice System |
We are currently living through incredibly troubling, unprecedented times due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A year drastically altered due to new restrictions and precautions, rather than becoming complacent, I chose to address the situation head on. My project, Covid-19 and the Justice System, directly addresses the current pandemic and its implications on the justice system. During the project, I hope to not only uncover how the justice system has been affected by the pandemic, but more so, how the pandemic has highlighted places for reform within the justice system. Has the outbreak of an infectious disease altered the nature of the prison system? Has the transition of court hearings from in-person to online created any problems in terms of conducting a fair trial? This spring, I will attempt to answer these questions and more as I research online and conduct various interviews with those associated with the justice system.
