There are 6 pages of submissions to be viewed:

Page 1 - Alaina M., Roycemore Roots and Shoots Club, Linden P., Andrew M., Linda Wallin, Claire Bermaum, Mariana M., Inika

Page 2 - Lyra R., Amelia R., Emilie B.

Page 3 - Anika Chandola, Laxmiprasad, Anika B.

Page 4 - Srinrsimha Katakam, Anisha K.

Page 5 - Nora Berbaum, Kalyan

Page 6 - Celsey O'hare, Brynne O'hare

Banging, burning, melting, sounds of cries and tears, gale force winds, record-breaking tsunamis, and extinction, the cause of human activity. These are the noise and sounds that are caused as a result of climate change, rather human induced climate change. The glaciers are melting, the trees are burning, the people are crying, confused by the horrific weather. This is just the truth, on what is happening in this world. Which is why we must act rather than discuss, which has been going on for decades, foreshadowing the very event that is occurring right now. Recently, talks about the Doomsday Glacier seemed to have been trending. This glacier is unfortunately about to change the scope of climate change and the world in a way that has never happened in a horrifically negative way. Raising the sea levels, tsunamis, decreasing the reflection of the sun, burning, and sinking of modern coastlines and cities, such as New York. And is accelerating at a rate that is exponential, growing concerns with the exponential growth of carbon based fuels, coal, along with it. Being the main cause, for the glacier to melt and fall into ruin.

In the traffic, wondering how to escape the traffic, with all of the sounds in the background and seeing the cars jammed up on the highway seeing how congested this world is in front of the highway. While seeing in different parts of the world, other people are seeing their friends talking and seeing the rain fall, and in another place seeing the ice melt. Maybe even witnessing some research all around the world, from animals to ice and the temperatures around the world trying to create some sort of trendline to see where we are going, as a collective group. Seeing all of this, one may ask how can we help with this issue that is currently being presented not just in the US but all around the world where there are places that are getting affected and destroyed by the noises and destruction from climate change. This is why I am proposing that we as a humanity must step up to do our part to protect not just our future, but also what is present right now. The time has come to look back and decide what we must do, instead of talking about it. This is where the strategies come in to describe possible solutions.

First solution, this is to simply stop using cars as much and rely on one’s skills and utilities that they have access to. Such as using more public transport to get to essential places, and carpooling with other people to limit the number of cars. This not just limits the amount of fossil fuels getting emitted into the atmosphere but it also aids in decreasing the congestion of traffic and allows for the noises to not be overwhelmed by mechanical sounds and rather bring back some of that nature and natural life that has been completely eliminated by the bringing of this new idea becoming much more widely used. Which I can say, is simple and often disregarded, especially with the pandemic, this has become nearly eliminated, and linked to a huge uptick in the traffic after restrictions began to decrease.

Second solution, relating to my first thesis and statement in the paragraph above, I wish to add, that using your bicycle or walking to a place instead of going on a car can have a dramatic effect on climate change and the total effect like explained above, but this time with data from Harvard states, “What about a meat-heavy diet, the Paleo diet? I looked at Paleo meal plans and academic lifecycle GHG estimates for the foods in those meal plans, and estimated the average emissions of a Paleo diet to be 5.4 gCO2e/kcal [v]. This gives us 135 gCO2e/km, very close to the Prius. What about a vegan? Vegan diets have much lower emissions, around 1.6 gCO2e/kcal [vi], for 40 gCO2e/km. This means that a biking vegan has less than a third the impact of an individual driving a Prius, and 1/7th the impact of an individual driving an average car.” (https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog/climate-impacts-biking-vs-driving) This piece of research gives us evidence needed to discuss our third solutions to this issue. In which this evidence shows, that meat eaters on the Paleo diet, have a similar emission to a Prius (Fuel Efficient Vehicle), showing that even if one bikes their diet can still have a mass effect based on the meat consumption. Due to the amount of emissions coming from farming and the animal’s need.

Third solution I have prepared is eating significantly less meat which adds up to 10% of the climate issue. And even without the benefit of helping the world’s climate problems, the effects of eating meat can cause many other problems relating to one’s health, which is another reason that many new meat options, aim to attract meat eaters into options that are meat free but have the same taste in order to directly target meat consumers. This is one way they are trying to decrease meat consumption, and this is becoming clear with the way that many people are now trying to advertise better options which are now the most prevalent.

Fourth solution, bioengineering the planet to forcefully or try to plant small strategies that stop the total carbon in the air, or in a solar radiation management technique. Such as using some sort of mirrors in the poles or in space to reflect the sunlight back into space instead of letting it enter the atmosphere in the first place which have the chance to affect crops and won’t help the effect it has had on wildlife as much as this second one. Which is to trap down carbon in the atmosphere, which is possible with many strategies like reforestation, DAC (Direct Air Capture). Which are two strategies that work with either using natural life to trap carbon or using machines to remove carbon and store it deep into the Earth or launching it into space to get rid of some excess carbon.

To conclude, there are small ways, and many ways to affect the climate change problem and to solve or decrease our emissions to a small level or to a higher mass level. Even changing our lifestyle along the way. Thanks for reading!

by Kalyan