Day: February 18, 2015

We Need to Inform People About Climate Change!

Casey Leach 5 Comments

After getting further into the novel, Odds Against Tomorrow I kept thinking about how I wouldn’t know how to survive if an extreme natural disaster destroyed the city I was living in. For instance, in the novel when the category three hurricane came through and flooded New York City, Mitchell handled the situation pretty well and used his overly expensive canoe to get him and Jane to somewhere safe. This part of the novel reminded me of the movie The Day After Tomorrow because it is literally the same concept, except everything ends up freezing over.

This specific part of the novel made me a little nervous just because an extreme natural disaster like that could happen at any given point and nobody would be prepared for it. Many people would not know how to survive in that type of situation, which is really scary. However, if people were informed of climate change and the natural disasters that can arise due to climate change then people would be able to prepare themselves for extreme natural disasters such as the category three hurricane in the novel. Also, if people knew more about climate change and the effects it can cause then people could try to change their daily habits to try to decrease the negative effects happening due to climate change.

Also, lately the weather has been extremely nice in Eugene and many students realize that this is happening because of climate change, but it is concerning because we have having 60 degree weather in Eugene in the middle of February. Flowers are already starting to bloom! THAT IS A PROBLEM! Many people are happy about the weather being nice and I can’t blame them because I have been very happy with it too. However, after I sat down and really thought about it, I got a little concerned because that is not normal winter weather. It makes me wonder if we are having weather like this now then what will happen next year and the year after that and five years later?

The main problem is that we have damaged our climate so much that even if people did change their daily habits, it wouldn’t be enough to stop climate change or help decrease the effects we are having to deal with because of it. This is what is really scary. I honestly never used to think about climate change a lot before because I wasn’t as informed about it as I am now and I still barely know anything, which is even scarier! Now, I notice the little things about climate change such as having mid 60 degree weather in the middle of February. While talking to my dad on the phone today, he asked about the weather and I told him how it was really nice, but that was because of climate change and he replied with, “Oh no, that’s not the reason at all”. So that just shows me that adults aren’t even fully aware of this and don’t find it concerning. Therefore, I decided that I am going to make it my goal to talk to my family about different issues involving climate change over spring break to see what they have to say about it because I want to hear other people’s thoughts on the issue and see if they find climate change to be a huge issue or not. I recommend other people do the same thing because you will be surprised to hear what some people have to say about the issue.

Decrease in Salmon and Divestment Rally

bathan Leave a comment

Last week I attended both the Columbia River Fish Commission meeting and the divestment rally. I never truly realized how many people actually cared about these problems. Not only were there many students at these events but also active community members. And not only did these community members sit in on these of events but also participated such as asking questions or protesting.

Currently the salmon of Oregon are being affected greatly by global warming. These fish are cold water fish and the river waters are starting to warm rapidly. Since the climate is also warming there will be more flooding in the fall rather than the spring or summer. This also means that there will be decreased river flow in the summer and spring. The population of Portland is also expected to increase by half a million in the next few years thus, causing an increase in water demand. At this meeting people were also able to voice their opinions on possible solutions to this problem. One presented idea was to breed salmon and a release them into the rivers of Oregon. However this idea was quickly shot down since these fish would not be native to Oregon and would most likely be treated with possible chemicals that could affect the rivers. These salmon would most likely die off quickly anyways cause they wouldn’t be use to the warmed conditions. Also, not only are these salmon being affected but the tribes with possession of this land would lose their identity once a large population of salmon is lost.

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