Climate Change in the Eyes of a Student Environmentalist

Aashka Garg

10.25.19

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We have all heard about climate change- or at least I hope you all have. It's a pressing issue about which we, as the generation of the future, should be talking. We, at the STEM Academy, have our own student activists as well as the STEM Sustainable Advancement Society. We interviewed one of our student activists, Lais Santoro, to learn more about her opinion and what she thinks.

So, when asked what exactly she does as an environmentalist, Lais talked about how she is involved in a couple of organizations all centered toward educating the upcoming generations. She mentioned how she works with the Sunrise Movement. The Sunrise movement is an organization that, mostly led by youths, pursues the mission of working to stop climate change and create millions of jobs in the process. Sunrise works a lot with politics by tying their argument for change with economics. Solving climate change will help solve economic problems like the economic disparity between races.

She also works with an organization called Zero Hour, which focuses on getting to the roots of climate change by establishing an educational platform through which they go to schools in the area to fully educate kids about climate change. Climate change is often glossed over, which fully ignores how dolphins are winding up dead on beaches, how whales are being strangled by plastic, and how sea turtles are being killed by asphyxiation.

When asked about the importance of giving the future generation a voice, Lais was extremely passionate. She had three main points: 1.) the past generation has made a lot of mistakes - they’ve known that climate change was a problem and that it existed since the ’70s. Yet, after 30 years of doing nothing, they are finally seeing the effect; 2.) since we are going to be the ones living in the future and inheriting the catastrophe, it's our choice and we should be able to have a voice; 3.) we are all a lot smarter than people think - they (meaning stubborn people who still do not accept reality) need to hear the other side, the side of the children who have to fix the mess earlier generations have made.

Just something quick to think about: In 1996, the Hoover Institution released a report about climate change. To quickly summarize, the report said that they were “optimistic” that climate change would be beneficial to the American people because it would provide benefits and reduce the mortality rate in America. So clearly there is a disparity that needs to be addressed. Europe has already banned single-use plastic. What are we doing about it?

Finally, when asked about what the STEM population can do to minimize its footprint and avoid contributing to our already overflowing landfills, Lais suggested that the little smart choices we make daily will eventually contribute to helping our planet - i.e. - Avoid the use of plastic water bottles and make sure to carpool, compost, recycle, and spread awareness.

"We are either going to pay to react or pay to be proactive." -Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez