Climate Action is for College Students

The year 2020 was a devastating year. We suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic, globally devastating wildfires and hideous reminders of racial injustice.

Now, we face another year of chance and consequence, but we cannot think of 2021 as a singular year. 

Every year, every moment, is a workspace to develop the trajectory following decades will take. We need to execute our actions with forethought. It is particularly pertinent now, as we rebuild our economies, communities and lives, that we think about surviving the next 50 years and not just tomorrow. 

Climate change is the biggest global threat to our survival. Our climate is changing as you read this. We have a limited amount of time to dictate how drastic its impacts will be in the next 50 years. It is everyone’s problem. However, it is us, college students, who are poised to tackle climate change from a broad range of disciplines. We can’t all dedicate our careers and lives to this one issue, but we must use our diverse interests and expertise to ensure a stable climate for our lives and the lives of many others after us.

To take action, we must understand what is happening and what is to come. Last December, the World Meteorological Organization stated, “2011-2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015.” This drastic warming has raised sea levels, spawned deadly droughts, lengthened and intensified fire seasons and severely harmed many ecosystems. Unless we do something, the warming will exponentially continue, and the United Nations has reported that the damage will be irreversible by 2030. 

People of every class, race and nationality are impacted by climate change. According to the 2020 mid-year update from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, natural disasters caused by climate change displaced 9.8 million people, making climate change the new leading cause of displacement. In Montana, we only have to think back to the smoky days of the summer and fall to remember how many people lost their homes to wildfires. If we extend our view to the coast, we can see how other people are losing their homes to rising sea levels. Along with these events, the record-breaking number of hurricanes in 2020 have left cities in a scramble to find resources and ways to recover before the next hurricane season hits. 

Climate change affects people both distantly and personally. It is incredibly multifaceted and must be addressed the same way. Scientists are commonly seen as warriors fighting against climate change. They collect the data we rely on and create technologies to solve our issues. However, as easy as math, chemistry and computer programming may be to people in STEM fields, their ideas and knowledge must be implemented into the rest of the world. It is simple to come up with a solution, but incredibly difficult to implement it into our systems and societies.

This is what makes the humanities invaluable. It is the people who can communicate, persuade, understand the implications of history, develop business models and share ideas who move society. They are the people who have the power to turn ideas into movements.

Unfortunately, as much as we need climate action, putting energy into climate solutions is a privilege. As college students, many of us work part-time jobs on top of full credit loads in the hopes of scoring a decent job to pay off student debt. Some students have families relying on their income. Many have been horribly affected by the pandemic. A college student's life is rarely very calm, but right now students are facing more financial and emotional stress than ever before.

Finding a way to do something about climate change while struggling to meet day-to-day demands is difficult, but it’s doable. While in school, students should learn about environmental impacts and solutions while getting a degree in whichever field they wish. Once we graduate, we can plant our environmental knowledge into our work lives. We need to change our society through our jobs. Independent activism is important, but if a company can change its environmental impact or stand with politicians that support environmental protections, the progress will be astounding.

I dream of the day when workers will hold their companies accountable for their environmental footprint. As a single person, this task might seem impossible. It is easier to fire one person than to change the way a company works. Therefore, we must stand together. We must change our society from within the workforce.

Together, we face the looming threat of climate change, and together we can change our society to withstand it. We are college students who must protect our lives through the way we live our lives.