AFS Middle School Climate Change Newspaper

Edition 2

This newspaper was written by Radha Airan-Javia, Pax Commons, and Hsin-Hua Peters

CLIMATE CHANGE! Climate Change is much more urgent than it seems.

People and animals are SUFFERING AND DYING because of climate change. We need to take action NOW if we want to save our planet and ourselves. If you do not know what climate change is, check out our first newspaper post here: https://tigershakti.org/ `

Grandchildren today are expected to have to go through 2-3 times as many natural disasters as their grandparents did.

We need to fight climate change before it is too late. We need to fight for our future!

Featuring: etee!

Check out my blog at Tigershakti.org or https://tigershakti.org/ In my blog, I post about gardening, crafts, and climate change. Check it out! I also have some terrarium ideas!!!!

Etee is a company that focuses on making non-toxic cleaning products with plastic-free packaging to save us, and our planet. Read on to find out more!

(Not

sponsored

What is deforestation and why is it so devastating for us and our planet?

Deforestation is what it sounds like. Deforestation is when forested land is purposely cleared.

There are different methods of deforestation. The two main methods are burning and cutting.

Trees suck carbon dioxide from the air and store it in their trunks and leaves. When trees are burned, the fire releases all the carbon dioxide they had stored back into the atmosphere. That means there are fewer trees. The fewer trees there are, the less carbon dioxide they can suck out of our atmosphere.

Forests are mainly burned/cleared to make space for farmland, mining, drilling, and to make space for palm oil plantations. Since 1990, our world has lost a billion acres or 420 million hectares of forest.

Click or type this in for more information about deforestation https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/deforestation

Why is palm oil horrible for our environment?

The palm oil trees themselves are not bad, but the way industries grow them is bad for our earth. When companies create a palm oil farm, they cut forests and rainforests down. Rainforests suck up carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and store them in their leaves and trunks. When they are cut down, they cannot store carbon dioxide anymore. The truth is, forests are chopped away to make palm oil plantations This image is a comparison between a forest and a palm oil plantation. The diverse group of trees on the top is the natural forest, and the rows of palm oil trees are the palm oil plantation. While rainforests and forests can support many animals, oil palm trees cannot support the number of animals needed to create biodiversity.

Not So Fun Facts Facts copied from https://sustainability.georgetown.edu/50-facts-for-50-years/

● ●

●

●

● 25% of the bottled water you buy is really municipal tap water, so you might as well pass on the plastic bottle. ● A modern glass bottle takes 4000 years or more to decompose. ● In the last 170 years, we added 2.4 trillion tons of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere. Half of this was added in the last 35 to 50 years.

Scientists predict that if the increase in greenhouse gas emissions continues unabated, temperatures will rise by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

Over 6 million people currently live in coastal areas vulnerable to sea-level rise at 1.5°C degrees, and at 2°C, climate change would affect 10 million more people by the end of this century.

Children living near freeways have shown to have substantial deficits in lung function, and they develop asthma exacerbations, increased risk of low birth weight, and premature birth.

The US makes up only 5% of the world population, but it throws away enough plastic bottles in a week to encircle the Earth 5 times!

Here is what to take away from this. We need to fight climate change together!

Even if we are not fighting for our planet, we need to fight for our future!

What can we do? How to do your part to save our planet!

Nobody wants Climate Change to happen, but it is. Climate change is coming whether you like it or not. If we all do our part to stop climate change, we can succeed!

Deforestation is a HUGE threat to our planet. We need to do what we can to reduce deforestation too late!

Here are some easy things you can do to fight against climate change!

1. Use less paper. Paper comes from trees, and to make paper from trees, they have to be cut down. It is simple to use less paper- here are some ways you can use less paper a. When you write your warm-ups in classes like english, fill up your paper with warm-ups and then use the back. b. If you have any papers from an old assignment, save them to use for this next tip! c. When you want to doodle, or write down something, use a piece of scrap paper instead of using a brand new paper.

2. Eat less palm oil. Palm oil plantations are so bad for our planet. To be more eco friendly and eat less palm oil without having a huge impact on your daily life, do this. When you get a snack, check the ingredients list on the back. If you see palm oil in the ingredients list, maybe consider getting a snack that does not contain palm oil. It is as easy as that!

Do you see the palm oil in the ingredients list in this picture?

Eco-Friendly Fashion! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i0QMnz4ExY ( a cool place in Italy takes recycled clothes and turns them into something new!)

Eco-friendly brands Save the Duck ( Save the Duck is an outerwear brand that focuses on being cruelty-free) https://savetheduckusa.com/ Bottletop ( a sustainable fashion brand that sells accessories and jewelry. ) https://bottletop.org/collections/winter-sale NAK no animal killed ( a shoe brand that is cruelty-free and vegan https://www.nakfashion.com/

Plastic Freedom ( a brand focusing on plastic-free products and sells beauty, clothing, office supplies, and homeware. They plant a tree with every purchase that is made ) https://plasticfreedom.co.uk/ Allbirds ( sustainable footwear. Has sold over a million shoes in the US and the UK.) https://www.allbirds.com/ FAST FASHION Fashion trends keep on changing. And when trends change, fashion brands keep on making new things to keep up with trends at cheaper prices. There is fast use in fashion. There is an average that a piece of clothing is worn only 14 times. Most modern clothing is made not to last long. After a couple of times being worn, most clothes will end up in a landfill. Every year, fashion uses 93 billion cubic meters of water, which could satisfy the consumption of five million people, and is responsible for 20% of water pollution. Another problem with fast fashion is plastic. Fast fashion uses a lot of plastic, and the usage of recycled fabric is only 4%. Clothes release half a million tons of microfibers in the ocean, which is more than 50 billion plastic bottles.

The leading fast fashion brands are ● Boohoo which owns: Burton, Coast, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Karen Millen, MissPap, Nasty Gal, Oasis, Pretty Little Thing, Wallis, Warehouse. ● Forever 21 ● In the Style ● I Saw it First ● Missguided ● Shein ● Quiz ( Tip: if a brand has a lot of “ new in” items and the products are cheap, then it is a fast-fashion brand ) Etee!

Etee is a store that makes transitioning to being eco-friendly much easier. Here are some quotes from etees website:

“Toxic chemicals leach out of plastic and are found in the blood and tissue of nearly all of us.

Exposure to them is linked to cancers, birth defects, impaired immunity, endocrine disruption, and other ailments. Additionally, it poisons our food and water sources.”

“380 million tons of non-biodegradable plastic is produced worldwide each year and it will take up to 1000 years for that harmful plastic to decompose. It doesn’t break down, it breaks up and gets stored in the fatty tissue of the foods we eat and in the water we drink.”

“Over 260 species, including invertebrates, turtles, fish, seabirds and mammals, have been reported to ingest or become entangled in plastic debris, resulting in impaired movement and feeding, reduced reproductive output, lacerations, ulcers, and death. In our oceans alone, plastic debris outweighs zooplankton by a ratio of 36-to-1.”

“Everything suffers: tourism, recreation, business, the health of humans, animals, fish, and birds—because of plastic pollution. The financial damage continuously being inflicted is inestimable. The overall natural capital cost of plastic used in the consumer goods sector each year is $75 billion.

Check them out here!:https://www.shopetee.com/

Help Us! Try to implement the tips we recommended in this newspaper! YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Help us spread the word! We sent a digital copy of this newsletter to you. Send the link to your friends and family.

Talk to the people you know. Tell them about climate change and what we can do to help.

Make posters. We need to SPREAD THE WORD. If you make a poster, send us a picture and we will put it in our newspaper! Here are some possible things to put on your poster: ● There is NO Planet B, Save the earth!, Planet over Profits! Not a myth, Planet over plastic!

Help us with our newspaper! We will review anything that is about climate change! Email me at 27radhaa@abingtonfriends.net if you want to help with our newspaper!

We have a club- The Environmental Club. It's on Wednesdays. If you want to help us make a change, join us!

If you have any questions about Global warming/Climate change, Email me at 27radhaa@abingtonfriends.net I will be happy to answer your questions!!!!!!!

How YOU can make a difference.

If we want to save our planet and ourselves, we need to take action. PEOPLE and ANIMALS are SUFFERING and DYING because of CLIMATE CHANGE. But what can we actually do? It seems so hopeless.

Here is what we can do. We can peacefully protest. We can reduce how much greenhouse gases we put into our atmosphere. We can use less plastic. We can SPREAD THE WORD. Email me at 27radhaa@abingtonfriends.net to help save both ourselves and our planet.

Quiz To get some recycled handmade paper we made, get a 75 or better on our quiz! The quiz was emailed to you :)

Other things to check out!

Animal awareness comics - Recommended by Aryana! https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/loving-reaper/list?title_no=353275&page=4

Comic! By a talented anonymous artist.

Sources: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/what-fast-fashion-why-it-problem https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/etee-revolutionary-plastic-free-products#/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/deforestation/ https://sustainability.georgetown.edu/50-facts-for-50-years/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/deforestation https://www.sei.org/publications/agriculture-deforestation-emissions/ https://www.shopetee.com/ https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Sustainable-palm-oil-through-deforestation-alerts-1.htm

https://www.aslegal.com/product/KEB12233 https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/real-cost-of-cheap-palm-oil/