Gabriel Zucker

Climate Conversations

By Gabriel Zucker

Every day more and more people are waking up to the realities of climate change. This environmental phenomenon has been a topic of conversation among scientists and climate experts since the 1960s. The main diff erence between then and now is that everyone else is fi nally starting to see and experience the eff ects of climate change fi rsthand.

“Climate change is a problem today, it’s not about the next generation or down the road. It’s the challenge we’re facing right now,” said John Meyer, head of the Environmental Studies Department at Cal Poly Humboldt.

Meyer has spent his life in both academic and political circles and is educated in governmental policies and how they relate to the environment.

“The substantial majority, for example, of U.S. citizens when polled consistently will tell you that they believe that human-caused climate change is real,” Meyer said. “They believe it’s a problem and a substantial percentage except that it’s aff ecting their lives in their communities. That’s true in conservative parts of the Midwest and the South as it is in places like California.”

The environmental movement is a multifaceted machine. Eco-activists come from a multitude of backgrounds and walks of life, using their individuality to push the movement further. Encouraging sustainable practices or and spreading knowledge to the next generation is critical in continuing the movement to stop climate change.

Having a positive impact despite the odds

Raelina Krikston is an Arcata resident who ran for city council, coming in third. She focused on aff ordable housing. Individually, Krikston is trying to make a diff erence in the world and understands the truth about how deeply damaged the world is.

“Running for City Council at a time when our city’s growth is very impactful in the environment and the future of our local community, that’s something that I individually am working towards,” Krikston said.

According to Krikston, the “majority of global emissions are from three really large players and consumer actions really have no impact on them whatsoever. It’s the inner cogs of this machine that we’ve built our society on,” Krikston said.

To save the world, it takes more than individual actions. Meyer understands

the importance of community but more importantly, the impact one person can have with a community behind them.

“The most meaningful thing that one person can do in the climate movement, is join together with others in pursuing those kinds of broader collective and communal shifts,” Meyer said.

Anyone aff ected by the COVID-19 pandemic has a universal understanding of what it means to be alone to some extent, giving a greater appreciation of community. Krikston and Meyer both witnessed positive changes in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Krikston experienced how big of an impact shutting down the world can be, while Meyer saw a government actively catering to its citizens.

“We collectively shut down the world for two weeks, and look at how much improvement was made just by leaving it alone,” Krikston said. “It seems like a large part of the solution is just slowing down, fi nding ways to be self-suffi cient and self-reliant in our local communities.”

Meyer, on the other hand, was in Germany during the summer of COVID-19. There he witnessed the German government take action to help their citizens. The German government gave subsidies to drivers to reimburse them for rising gas prices. The second thing the government did was make public transportation very accessible, by charging only nine euros a month.

“They created a policy that meaningfully reduced the amount of cars on the road that meaningfully addressed climate change in terms of the amount of fossil fuels being consumed,” Meyer said.

How and why students are individually taking action

A lot of students are gearing up for the future by educating themselves, learning the skills they need, and networking with other like-minded individuals.

Kristina Feibig is one of these students. She is an environmental studies student at Cal Poly Humboldt focusing on recycling.

“I really want to work on industrial composting, just because plastic is such an issue and if we can create all food packaging into industrial compostable materials, then we could really reduce just what is being a one-use thing lasting longer than your lifetime,” Feibig said. “People don’t exactly care if it’s plastic or industrial compostable. People couldn’t care, it’s just a material. All they care about is the single use, the easability of it.”

Even though the system is set up against her, it gives her hope. The system is built up to push people down, but the silver lining for her is that the system can also be used for good.

“We just need the right people in power to change it,” Feibig said.

Bryan Ellison, an environmental studies student focused on media, has spent much of his life in nature. He went camping a lot as a kid, and even in his youth he still noticed the climate changing.

“As I got older, hearing about climate change I guess I fi rst started noticing that we would have a lot more hot days than when I was a kid. We used to have a lot of fog and a lot more rain,” Ellison said.

After taking some time away from school, he fi nally decided to come back to fi nd his calling in the world. In doing so, he discovered a new outlook on life.

“This may be a little bit out there, but some people could call it a higher

power, but to me, it’s almost like the thing grounding us that we all have in common, like Mother Nature you could call it,” Ellison said.

What Now?

Communication and Conversation

“John Meyer’s has been a part of the environmental movement for decades. One thing that he is appreciative of today, is the evolution of technology, especially how it’s related to communication. “The way that the media environment has changed and the way that communications through social media and other forms allows for a lot of problems, but it also allows for more kind of horizontal communication rather than just from the top down, and so arguably create space for a greater diversity of leaders, but not the sort of one great individual who’s leading the movement,” said Meyers. The bad thing about the spread of information is that a lot of it can be false. This phenomenon has given rise to misinformation. The problem now is how can we reach out to individuals who have been exposed to these echo chambers of misinformation. “For someone uneducated or in denial about it, I would really want to ask more questions rather than proselytize to them about it,” Krikston said.

The most meaningful thing that one person can do in the climate move” ”

The environmental movements is an “ We just need the interconnected movement that relies on communication and community to keep right people in power to change it.” fi ghting. Without that an individual environmentalist is lost. The odds are stacked against the world surviving, but that is okay. It should not take away from the individual and communal changes happening in every local community, everything matters. Without that mentality we are lost.