Prior to this class I never thought about climate change for more than a couple of minutes when I would read about an area affected by climate change, or the toll it will have on our future world. Which seems surreal because I find myself seeing and thinking about climate change so frequently now that it has become a daily thought of mine. It’s like an ex-best friend that you try and avoid at all costs, but somehow they just happen to be at your new favorite coffee shop, around the corner and basically everywhere that you are. Similar to this ex-best friend climate change is something that is prevalent everywhere, it is the grass and flowers we see blooming way before they should be, it is the invisible winter that was nothing short of sunshine and 55 degrees (which is extremely warm for a Eugene winter,) it is everywhere. Unlike this unavoidable ex-best friend, climate change is something that can be tackled, something that is not all bad, and something that we can slow down the progression of if we put our entire effort forward.

With all of this in mind, after seeing how climate change is affecting the world around us immensely it shocked me to have a discussion with one of my roommates about climate change. After a long and tiring back-to-back argument about climate change I left the room furious. Essentially in a short synopsis she told me that she didn’t believe that climate change was moving at a more rapid pace because of the human effect on the world. She tried to explain to me that climate change would happen regardless because of the natural toll of the earth. As that is true, we have a huge impact and carbon footprint that is in-erasable. Everything we do is helping the progression of a world heavily affected by climate change, a world that could have a limitation on water intake, rising sea levels, cities being wiped out and so on.

The idea of any of those things happening would frighten most people, which is what shocked me most about this conversation that I had with one of my roommates. Although people are obviously entitled to their own opinion, I just don’t understand how someone could turn a blind eye to the world around us. For example, these wonderful sunny days in Eugene are an indicator that our climate is changing, it is hot somewhere where it is supposedly still “winter,” yet rather than a winter full of rain we have a winter filled with sunshine. Last year around this time, if not a month prior it was snowing here, and now it’s as sunny as can be. I suppose, if you don’t believe in climate change you can pin it to us being fairly lucky. But for those who realize and understand the path our world is taking can only hope that one day more people will realize that climate change is occurring, and will continue to occur if we don’t change.

I decided to call my dad to talk about his thoughts on the issue of Climate Change. I started out with a simple question, I asked him, “What is Climate Change?”

His answer : when you have things happening that don’t make sense. He talked about the ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland melting. The winters in America have been scary, with the severity of the cold and the snow. My dad lives in Orlando, Florida and when I asked him about what this past winter was like he said: It was 29 degrees one day, it’s not supposed to be that cold in Orlando. he thought something was wrong, It’s normal for it to be 29 in Buffalo, it’s normal for it to be 29 in Pittsburgh, however it’s NOT normal for it to be 29 in Orlando.

I have 11 year old twin brothers and they also live in Orlando with my dad. When I asked my dad if they knew about climate change and global warming he said well… they’re 11. As if they’re too young to know and understand what exactly is happening. You wouldn’t expect an 11 year old to know much about global warming but maybe thats something that needs to change. He said they vaguely knew about what it was, and have inquired about it as kids do, (we all know kids love asking questions) but he said that they learn about it at school.

Because of climate change, they went from a Jeep Commander (a gas guzzler if I’ve ever seen one) to a Kia optima, less gas and more efficient. America is all about the bigger the better. You could go into any parking lot and  you’d mostly see SUVs, trucks and minivans. But we are entering a time now that you see more and more cars like the prius and other smaller cars around. America’s car crazy culture coincide with the rest of the world, Europe has been making smaller cars for a long time. America’s mantra is “the bigger the better” our cars were bigger, our houses were bigger, our desire to be the “best” has maybe been one of our gravest mistakes seeing as now we are the leading country in greenhouse gas emission.

I asked him what he thought the world might look like 50 years from now.  He thinks that if the world is still in the throws of denying climate change then the world is going to be a mess. He believes it is our duty to change the world for a better future for our kids and their kids and so on and so forth. You don’t want to put the world in a state that you wouldn’t be okay with your most loved ones living in.

When I asked what he thought he could do to make a difference, his answer entailed many of the things that we have talked about and already know to do to make a change: smaller cars and being more conscientious of conserving energy where we can.

When coming across a person who denies that climate change is real, what would you say to them to convince them otherwise?

He said to take a look at our seasons. The seasons aren’t what they used to be, the droughts, the blizzards, polar vortex (cold air coming down from canada) and various natural disasters are things we’re slowly becoming desensitized to because of how frequently we here about them on the news.

It’s hard to believe that people don’t believe the scientists that dedicate their lives studying and proving that this issue exists. He thinks, that the evidence proving global warming to be real, greatly outweighs any evidence to the contrary.

So I called my mom today to have a discussion on climate change and to listen to her thoughts and feelings on the issue. It feels like both my parents have been aware of the major changes in the climate over the years and have always encouraged me and my brothers to be mindful of our waste and always do our best to reduce our carbon footprint. So I called her and asked her simply, “What do you think about climate change?” She responded in a very lengthy explanation that she believed that not enough people realized the issue and found it ironic that such a major dilemma is ignored by people. She also commented on the materialism aspect in our society today and how this definitely affected people’s capacity to accept change as well as change their lifestyle to prevent the damaging effects. There was especially one quote that stuck in my mind, “People always believe that the earth is ours for the taking, to supply us, bend to our will, but in reality it’s the opposite way around, in a manner of speaking.” After our discussion, she told me that she had to go because her and my dad, as well as their friends, were going skiing in the Swiss Alps in a few minutes.

We said our goodbyes, and for a while I sat there thinking how odd it was that we had just had this serious discussion on melting ice and materialism, and here were my parents going skiing in a country notoriously known for it’s beautiful winter sport weather. In a way, it’s almost like they’re enjoying the snow while they can. It suddenly dawned on me that usually when most people thinking about climate change and melting ice the location is almost always Antartica or areas mostly made up of glaciers and ice. While this is still true, I had the impulse to look up climate change in the Swiss Alps. What I found was a very interesting article on how the changing climates in the Alps weren’t just going to affect the great skiing, but possibly destroying the towns that rest directly below it. In 2006 there was a massive collapse of ice off a glacier known as Grindelwald Glacier. The town known as Grindelwald, has been experiencing rising temperatures as early as the 1980’s and has experienced serious flooding and damages as a result. The article goes into good depth on how they manage with the melting glaciers and even use the side effects to show tourists the seriousness of the rising temperatures.

As naive as this sounds, this article really made me realize how climate change is truly affecting the entire world, not just areas more vulnerable to it rising temperatures. It gave me really good insight into how climate change is global and made me question how many glaciers will need to melt before people actually start to notice?

Link to the article: “As Glaciers Melt, Alpine Mountains Lose Their Glue, Threatening Swiss Village” -New York Times