Rajshekhar Basu Sarkar
eSomethin staff
The latest California wildfire has been subject to debate. Some believe that climate change caused these latest wildfires. Others believe that government incompetence made these wildfires escalate to the point, are the reason for the latest wildfires.
Two people at Perrysburg High School who are concerned with the environment and climate change are Biology and Environmental Science Teacher Danielle Dastoli and Environmental Club president Adeline Kinnear.
Dastoli said, “I would just say small changes add up, the wildfires were created due to a lack of rain and winds, so many factors contributed to the latest wildfire.”
Dastoli said the wildfire is happening at a different time other than the seasonally normal time “due to the lack of rain, super dry conditions.”
Dastoli was also asked what actions the government/community should take to mitigate the effects of climate change. Dastoli said “We need to make it a priority to lower carbon emissions, educate people regarding the impacts before it’s too late.”
“I would say everyone should use reliable sources, scholarly articles, and people should learn how to read the graphs correctly,” Dastoli said.
eSomethin also interviewed Adeline Kinnear, high school senior. Kinnear said she “I think [the wildfire] is attributed to climate change, climate change has made California hotter, windier, drier, which has made the fires hard to contain.”
Kinnear said the environmental clubs meets “once a month, Tuesday at 8 in the morning, for example for Christmas, we made sustainable Christmas gifts such
Kinnear also expresses an intention to increase club membership. Kinnear says that she intends to do this through “Club carnivals.”
Kinner said that climate change is “just a topic in an environmental club meeting, we give a lot of tips to be more environmentally friendly.”
Kinnear said “We could reduce single use plastic, making sure you are recycling, AI is bad for the environment, they use water, eating less meat and eating organic foods are also another step that the local community can take to protect the environment.”
Climate change is something to be taken seriously. Like other policy discussions, the climate change debate has been a partisan debate, with people denying science believing that it would satisfy their respective political party.
One could debate what steps the government should take to protect the environment. One could have reasonable disagreements about the scope of these steps but we must all take climate change seriously and acknowledge that climate change exists before it is too late.
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