This week, I decided to talk to my grandparents about how they feel about the climate change issue as a whole.  I chose to talk to them because I know that they often have very different opinions than me on issues like this.  They also tend to be very stubborn–especially my grandpa, and do not change their opinions very easily.  I started by talking to my grandpa and asked very generally:  “How do you feel about climate change?”  He responded by saying that he did not think that it was something we had to put too much effort into right now because it will not affect us for a while.  When I asked him why he does not worry about it and dismisses it, he just responded by saying that his effort alone was not enough to make a huge change and that to change his ways would be inconvenient.  While I agreed with him that it can sometimes be inconvenient, I told him that I think it is important that we try to make a change sooner than later.  He shrugged it off.  “I’m not going to be around for that!”

Contine reading →

Throughout our discussions in class this term we have talked a lot about how many people are aware of climate change and yet they “don’t care” or “don’t do anything about it.”  There are many explanations for this problem, some of which I am guilty of as well, that do not simply mean that a person does not care: not having the time, not having the resources, not knowing where to get involved, convenience.  For example, though I am aware of the benefits of solar panels, I do not have the resources or ability to incorporate them into my life because I live in an apartment and I am a full-time student with a limited income.  There are also the problems of people thinking that individual efforts mean nothing in the scheme of the world as a whole, or that people do not want to inconvenience themselves by make changes to their daily lives even if it would mean a better future: for example, buying a plastic bottle of water because your reusable one is in the dishwasher; instead of washing it, you choose convenience.  In doing this, we are also supporting the companies that produce this bottle of water.

Contine reading →

After reading our graphic novel this week, and thinking about some of the questions that we brought up in class, I decided to look up some climate change comic strips.  I wanted to answer the question that my group was discussing in class, which was: “Why don’t people care about climate change and why don’t they think it will happen?”  Our group focused on the notion that many people do not believe it is happening because they are not facing any changes in their daily life as of now due to climate change.  I, too, did not think that climate change had severe consequences as the ones we have been learning.  Reading “Diary of an Interesting Year,” though it is a fictional story, made me think about when the world is going to take a turn in that direction.  That story gave it a date: 2040.  The graphic novel, IDP: 2043 also gives it a date.  Though the comic strip I found does not have date included, it relates it in a different way that we have not really seen yet. 

Contine reading →

When the issue of climate change comes up, many people are quick to dismiss it.  It’s similar to how when we are young we can find ourselves feeling invincible.  “That may be dangerous/bad/scary but it will never happen to me.  It will never affect my life.”  While we have learned by this age that we are not immortal, there are still many people who do not think that climate change will directly affect them, and some people that do not believe in climate change at all.

I used to think about climate change as a thing of the future.  I knew that the environment was in trouble and about the green movement, but I still had a hard time understanding that the damaging effects of climate change were approaching rapidly.  Being from Berkeley, California I have been reusing, recycling, composting and conserving my whole life, but I was still under the impression that climate change was not going to create any serious problems until after I was long gone.  Contine reading →