(this is what I used for the public awareness presentation thingy. Alvin and Uche gave me their parts and I ended up making this. I decided to put this here because I didn’t want to clutter the Public Awareness Page)

For powerpoint: hello, this is Thuc and I want to show this slideshow our group worked on first! 🙂 It is normal for people to not go into depth about what climate change actually is. So we worked on making sure people would have a nice ground to work on or a fresh reminder in case it’s been a while. So starting here, we *throws in presentation*

(later after the powerpoint)

We were all attracted to different aspects of this project 🙂 Alvin, Uche, and I have made entirely different literature reviews/researched different things. In fact, I think if you look at all of our research done, I would not be able to really see a clear connection.  

But I do think its fascinating that we all did such different subjects! Uche focused on mental and physical health being impacted by climate change, Alvin focused on the effects of climate change on wildlife and ecosystems, and lastly, I did the food industry’s effects. However, all of us discussed the different aspects of life being affected by a changing climate. We focused on the future aspect. What will happen will all entirely depend on the present and what is changed about our methods in civilization.

That brings me to talking about our own ideas of the future. Why is it that we often talk about the grim aspects of things? The future is a very uncertain thing but I think it’s time to look at another part of that potential for a change. The world isn’t entirely good or entirely bad. We can, however, start taking steps in what we want to do, in order to get on track of the path we want. This part of the presentation is inspired by solarpunk! As stated in the introduction page right below the slideshow, solarpunk is essentially an art movement that focuses on envisioning the future that focuses on sustainability and civilization balancing itself with nature. These are a few examples of what solarpunk looks like. (show pictures)

To me the idea of a world where sustainable practices are achievable along with working in harmony with human technology gives me hope. I know it’s been a rough time, especially this year and probably more so in the future but it is nice to think about the possibilities of actually having a better space for humans altogether. I do realize this is very naive / too optimistic, but it gives me motivation to do better. I’m sure plenty of us are aware of the natural resources of the earth continuing to get overused for high demands. That includes the food industry, which is something that is always talked about. While I don’t have much personal motivation for the topic of food industries, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bring attention to it. Food is a necessity that shouldn’t be a scarcity, yet despite the huge demand in many markets, there are many people who still starve to death. Even people who work jobs will still struggle to put meals on the table due to meager wages and poor regulations of work laws. 

Moving onto my research, it didn’t occur to me how much energy we waste for even transporting and packaging ingredients and meals all over the world until I looked at the research. Sure, transportation is much more efficient, but when we continue to ignore the sustainable methods, there is more waste in the world, especially in greenhouse gas emissions. We currently pride ourselves in the “global” aspect of our technology, which is still not a bad thing. It’s just that if we continue to create high demand for foods all over the world– we need a better plan if we want to be able to spread all these foods and other materials across the world. 

Here are some words written by our other members on their research topics.

(Uche) chose to look into the health aspect of climate change. As an aspiring physician, Uche thought it would be cool to look at climate change’s effect on disease. It’s interesting that humans continuee to contribute to climate change even after a large percentage of the overall population is getting their mental and physical health affected for the worse. After she did extensive research on the effects that climate change has on human health, there was quite a lot of information that I never expected to see like: the increasing temperatures negatively affect mental health. Individuals with intense mental illnesses like schizophrenia and dementia are at higher risks for hospitalization and deaths during the intense heat periods of the year. In regards to physical health, climate change also gives rise to vector borne diseases generally being carried by mosquitoes and although this is a heavier problem in the tropic areas of the world, no one place is necessarily exempt. High temperatures are also catalysts for increased strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases. 

(Alvin) wrote that: Here on Earth, we live in an interconnected system that depends on each other for survival and advancement. When we neglect to protect and preserve nature, the consequences are shown through our environment and the increasing dangers of natural catastrophes. That is why Alvin decided to research this topic of climate change impacts on wildlife and ecosystems; without keeping check on other systems, we’re indirectly neglecting our own survival and future. Here on this site, I contributed to the first three slides of the powerpoint where I briefly give examples of ways that ecosystems are negatively affected by climate change with focus on arctic, marine, and forest ecosystems. For example: melting of polar ice caps increases global sea level, which in turn will flood coastal habitats, forcing local species of those areas to migrate or just die out, which will cause an imbalance in the food chain in that specific ecosystem. If you would like to read more about this aspect on climate change, feel free to check out my literature review under the “Research” tab of this site where I go into more specifics associated with effects of climate change on wildlife.

But now here’s what you can do 🙂

Ideas for the outro:) (you probably already thought of a bunch of these)

• Include practical ways that we can reduce climate change on our end (I tried looking it up and there’s tons of blogs with lists) ex:https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/top-10-ways-can-stop-climate-change
• Mention new york law about plastic bags

To conclude, we will watch an outside source that shows us the current effects of climate change (Show short video – maybe 5mins max?)

And to end this presentation, I would like to thank my group for cooperating with me and the audience for seeing this presentation through 🙂 Last of all, we’re going to watch this video