Be the Change’s Youth Blog Series highlights blogs written by university student interns at Be the Change Earth Alliance. In the blogs, the interns reflect on their experience completing “Action Packs,” which are learning resources that guide students in research, critical thinking and tangible action related to a global sustainability topic.
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-acid-oceans-dissolve-coral-reef.html
“Ocean acidification” sounds like a very straight forward and self-explanatory term right? Well, the process and implications of ocean acidification are a lot more complicated and profound. For generations, human activities have released too much carbon emissions, and these excessive carbon are being absorbed by Earth’s oceans. In nature, the carbon cycle is a natural process where the balance of carbon release and carbon absorption has sustained terrestrial ecosystems and marine ecosystems for a very long time. However, the excessive carbon particles in oceans are turning ocean water into a coercive and acidic environment that has become dangerous to calcifying organisms by making it difficult for these organisms to survive and build shells.
"Congratulations on your newborn! Here are the barbie toys and pink dresses I got for your daughter."
"Wow, your boy has grown so much since the last time I saw him! I got him some navy trousers and black shirts for him!"
When has the term "boy" connotes blue, black and gray, and the term "girl" connotes pink, red and purple?
What would a little child feel in this gender binary world, if they have both female and male organs?
This morning, thinking about Earth Day left me feeling a deep sense of grief for the state of wildlife and nature globally. This, on top of the gloom of the pandemic. Yet I’m also finding great inspiration in how our communities have demonstrated the will to take swift and bold action to address an emergency. The remarkable stories of solidarity, adaptation and resilience in response to Covid-19 give me hope for our planet’s future. This is Be the Change’s story so far.
In mid-March, I called together our staff team and reached out to our board to discuss the new challenge facing our eco-social educational programming: schools are closed, and kids are homebound. We all agreed on a vision for Be the Change stepping up to support schools, teachers and students. Our goal: to be in genuine service to teachers during this exceptional and difficult time. We envisioned creating a new collection of learning resources and activities to support teachers with online instruction and engage students remotely in authentic eco-social learning. Through a collaborative and iterative process, we developed the Climate & Connection Unit.
Be the Change has just launched the Climate & Connection Unit!
This new Unit from the Student Leadership for Change (SLC) program consists of 15 student Action Packs focused on two main themes:
Be the Change recognizes that we are living in uncertain and exceptional times. We are committed to protecting the health and safety of our community, our teachers, and our students. With staff working remotely and program offerings moving online, Be the Change is working to do its part to slow down the spread of COVID-19 and “flatten the curve”. We encourage you all to continue following the recommendations of public health agencies and healthcare officials closely.
Increasingly, articles are popping up in mainstream media covering the rise of eco-anxiety, particularly among young people. And it is hardly surprising. Today, for example, when I do a quick scan of The Guardian’s Climate news, the headlines read of the severe consequences a 2 degree temperature rise would have on Antarctic ice melt, that fossil fuel pollution has been behind 4 million prem
ature deaths annually, and that the 4 biggest fossil fuel companies (Shell, Chevron, BP and Exxon) have made almost 2 Trillion dollars since 1990 exploiting the fossil fuels that have contributed dramatically to climate change. Just scanning these stories- that highlight both the impacts of climate change is already having around the world, and that our governments and systems appear in-affective to deal with it, it is hard not feeling some sort of worry or fear about the future. It is also easy to understand why psychologists are reporting that people are coming to them for help to manage their worries and fears over climate change, and that climate change is now being recognized as a mental health issue.
What exactly is eco-anxiety?
One group of psychologists define eco-anxiety as the term to: “describe various difficult emotions and mental states arising from environmental conditions and knowledge about them. Eco‐Anxiety can result directly from an environmental problem, but most often it is an indirect impact. For example, a person may feel anxiety and sorrow because a woodland area next to him is cut down. But even more people experience anxiety because they feel that climate change is taking away their future.”
SPECIAL EDITION NEWSLETTER:
Our newsletter this month is dedicated to supporting Wet’suwet’en land defenders and protesters, in solidarity with Indigenous rights, title and climate justice.
