Happy Earth Day! Today is the day we celebrate the Earth and spread the world about the importance of our planet. Whether you are walking instead of driving or bringing a reusable bag to do your shopping, today we need to be especially cognizant of how our behavior affects the earth. But our efforts should not end today because we are learning more than ever how climate change is affecting the health of all humans.
The severity of climate change is continuously being declared, but motions to improve our climate are often small and slow-acting. But, what if we could raise enthusiasm to improve our climate? We saw the number of cases of asthma and other respiratory diseases rise as the level of air pollution increased. With the help of the Clean Air Acts in 1999, both the number of cases of respiratory diseases and the level of air pollution have decreased. While we have made major pushes to rebuild our environment, there is still a lot of work to do.
President Obama told Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a CNN interview: “The good news is that, in addition to having doctors and nurses, public health officials, schools of medicine joining together to raise awareness… What we have is companies like Google and Microsoft that are going to take data we’re releasing and start developing apps so that, potentially, individual families are going to be able to monitor the air quality in their communities in a real-time basis.” With support from such major companies, more people will learn more about our environment and the dangerous situation we are currently in. Seeing this information will, hopefully, encourage people to change their lifestyles to be more mindful of the environment.
Not only are respiratory diseases and the change global temperature already affecting us, but the drought in California is directly affecting people. We know how we are damaging our environment and we know how to fix it. The question is: Are people willing to change their lifestyles in order to improve the environment? I interviewed Ms. Wolf to discuss the challenges our Earth is facing and how she is combatting it.
Hewitt Times: What do you think is the best way to get people involved in helping the environment?
Ms. Wolf: Sign up for school or community environmental activities.
HT: Are you doing anything special (or not doing anything like using a car) today because it is Earth Day?
W: I am walking to school, from school to a meeting, and back home again.
HT: You have obviously made huge strides to help the environment with the Ban the Bag Conferences, but what plans do you have for the future in terms of Hewitt initiatives?
W: The first vote on the fee on bags takes place in the next few days. It may not pass- this type of legislation often takes several attempts to get it passed. If it does not pass, we will continue to work on this. Our club leaders for next year will decide what new initiatives we will pursue next year.
HT: What do you think is the most important thing for students to know about climate change?
W: The most important thing for students to know is that climate change is real and their actions will decide our future. My favorite quote is:
“Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.”—Kenyan proverb
So make sure that Earth Day does not end today. Every day we should be helping make Earth a cleaner, better planet.