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Yesterday, April 22nd, 2021, it snowed. This weather is extremely out of the ordinary for the middle of April and can likely be attributed to climate change. I asked four Avonworth students about their views on climate change and how they think it might impact their lives.
This is a picture taken Wednesday morning ,April 21st, parked at the Junior lot by Lenzer Field.
The general consensus among the students was that climate change was not an immediate concern. There were, however, mixed opinions on whether or not it would be an impact later on.
Freshman Alaina Holmberg did not think that it was going to impact her life personally: “Currently no, [climate change is not impacting my life] but I do think it will have a devastating effect on some people. Especially in the ice regions. I’m sure you’ve heard everyone is concerned about ‘the polar bears are dying!’ It’s also gonna affect like the air quality because it’s going to get warmer. Our winters might be shorter overall in the world.”
The school courtyard was empty during lunch on Earth Day 2021 due to the cold.
Brennan Raught, a junior, expressed slightly more concern over the environment and how it would impact him personally. “Jobs are gonna be changing in the future. It’s gonna affect the economy because different jobs are gonna be popping up; lots of jobs are gonna be going away like factory jobs and stuff, based on political decisions.” He did express some skepticism over the idea of the idea that yesterday’s snow may have been caused by climate change: “A hundred years ago there were days like that.”
Fewer people were eating outside in the temporary tents set up to help keep COVID regulations . The temperature was in the low 40s at the time.
I interviewed Jake Ehrin and David Gaugler, a sophomore and senior respectively, at the same time. They expressed quite a bit of skepticism over the idea of climate change and were not concerned. When asked whether or not he believed that climate change would impact his life at all, Gaugler said, “Not at all.” He then went on to explain, “I know over the past centuries the global warming or whatever went up a degree and that basically means that it’s gonna take eons climate change or global warming to affect me so I’m not really worried about it.”
Ehrin then added on, “I think it’s more so affecting animals and it’s not gonna affect us at all.”
Some windows around the school have had drawings of flowers posted on them this week. This could likely be in celebration of Earth Day.
