Three and a half years ago, I stood on the streets of San Francisco asking people to “step into my office” to talk about climate change. I got a lot of proverbial doors slammed in my face. Before the hurricanes, the droughts, the wild fires, the blizzards, and the mass melting of arctic ice, the general public was not interested in climate change.
I spent a semester outside college living in San Francisco and studying with Greenpeace. When people generally think of Greenpeace they imagine the show Whale Warsand crazy hippies. Greenpeace is actually the largest non-violent environmental activist group in the world. I spent the first few weeks at Greenpeace learning about every cause they stood for. I took countless notes and we did tons of projects to show the importance of each issue.
We took two vans down the coast of California to Los Angeles to discuss climate change with students. Unfortunately, many seemed uninterested and didn’t see how climate change or “global warming” affected them.
Two years later, tropical storm Irene hit New York, a historic storm that marked the first time Albany ever issued a tropical storm warning. An alarmingly dry winter followed.
Two and a half years later, parts of America and Australia (among others) saw massive wildfires spreading out of control. Three years later, the ice around the arctic reached an all time low; many scientists said it had basically disappeared. This past summer, the droughts have affected crops for the coming year. Then came Hurricane Sandy and much of Long Island and New Jersey will never be the same.
In 2013, 90% of scientists believe that humans are affecting the climate and that temperatures are rising. Four out of five Americans believe humans are a cause of climate change and that it needs to be addressed quickly. These statistics are staggering when you realize that a mere three years ago the public was vastly uninformed or just thought tree huggers had made it up.
The Keystone XL pipeline and Fracking the Marcellus Shale are leading us into a scary future. According to Bill McKibben, a journalist and environmentalist who has written extensively on global warming, if the temperature of Earth raises 2 degrees Celsius there will be a massive change in the climate. It has already risen 0.8 degrees and we have seen drastic changes.
The more informed everyone is on climate change and its direct correlation to the fossil fuel industry the better. Personally, I want my children to know what it’s like to be able to breathe outside without gas masks.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead best described the most important concept I learned from Greenpeace: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I am committed to making the Earth a safe and clean place. Fossil fuel companies may have the money but they cannot buy our voices.