The issue of global warming pervades the activist movement on campus. We’ve seen Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The 11th Hour,” our Facebook pages have gone green, and we buy our organic sandwiches on campus.
But most students have probably not actually thought about the drastic steps we need to take to curb global warming.
To many Angelenos, the impact of global warming on a small Eskimo village doesn’t seem to matter much.
Will Steger, the first person to dogsled to the North Pole, is leading a team of six people who will complete a 1,400-mile journey across Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic to capture the effects of global warming on film.
The sole purpose of his expedition is to inspire youth. His team will post the footage on the Web site www.globalwarming101.com.
This dramatic footage capturing the tragic loss of ice in the polar regions weighs even more heavily in light of a recent lawsuit between the Alaskan native village of Kivalina and Exxon Mobil.
The federally recognized Eskimo tribe there is suing Exxon, as well as eight other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company, over their impact on the climate change in the tribe’s native lands.
An ice block that once sheltered the community of salmon fishers from intense summer and winter waves has now melted, leaving the community vulnerable to treacherous waters.
Still, these facts don’t seem to be enough. If the vivid images of drowning polar bears in “An Inconvenient Truth” weren’t unsettling enough to get Americans to stop guzzling gas, it’s hard to know if Steger’s efforts will come through and truly convince young people that saving the environment needs to be a priority.
The impact humans have made on our environment within the last 150 years far surpasses any natural flux in climate within the last million years. We have manipulated our environment in such a way that we are dramatically altering the biodiversity of our planet, which has resources beyond our current knowledge. Humans seem to have become so proficient and reliant on abusing the earth’s resources to meet our needs that we ignore how current technology may be detrimental to keeping our earth healthy.
It’s frightening how slowly we are reacting to the serious implications global warming could have on our daily lives.
Though production and sales of hybrid vehicles has increased, sales of energy-efficient light bulbs doubled in 2007, and campus groups at UCLA have put on a variety of informative environmental events such as last month’s “Focus the Nation,” students overall still seem to feel complacent about what they can do to help.
“A lot of students do understand that global warming is going on and know that it is a severe problem,” said Kathy Tran, president of Environmental Bruins. “However, it still isn’t severe enough to drive the majority of students to consciously make changes due to the inconvenience.”
Instead, we have left the brunt of the work to a small group of students who try to combine all the small ways they can make a difference.
Members of student group E3 ““ Ecology, Economy, Equity ““ strive to waste less in the dining halls or use a bike rather than a car to get around.
These steps are really small, but if we all actually followed through with them the results would be tremendous.
“We can consciously use less energy by using lights only when necessary and remembering to turn them off when not in use, recycle what can be recycled (i.e. plastic bottles, cans, cardboard, paper), use a canvas bag to carry groceries instead of getting plastic/paper, print double-sided when you can, (waste) less food and so much more,” Tran said.
If we don’t act now, our world could be drastically altered by rising sea levels and a shift in global weather patterns.
As minor as the problems of the Eskimo village seem, they could foreshadow major problems big cities like Los Angeles could experience in 50 years.
I applaud the efforts of people like Steger who are taking action for a cause they believe in and who realize that keeping our environment healthy is more important than driving an Escalade.
Don’t just talk about keeping our environment sustainable and fighting global warming because it’s trendy and you feel concerned for a fleeting moment, but engage in daily activities that could positively impact our earth for the future.
As students, we have the opportunity to make sure that our future is bright by fighting to stop global warming.
Do you want to see an end to climate change? Send your plans for sustainability to smier@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.