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Friends and Family Response to Climate and Our Planet - by Alivea Addleman

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    186577

    • Alivea Addleman at Pima Community College
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    The atmosphere that the wildfire had brought was not what I had expected. As I exited my car and my shoes touched the soil of my friend’s property, the first things I noticed were tiny, black flakes that drifted overhead. My brother and I had driven to our friend’s ranch in Oracle; a small town about an hour’s drive from Tucson and tucked away behind Mount Lemmon. The fire on the mountain was still raging, and everyone in the small town was being ordered to evacuate, as the wind was blowing the wildfire straight toward the town. We piled the family into our van, all of them excluding the father, who had to stay to pack up as many animals as possible into their trailer. The air was thick with smoke, and the smell of burnt grass was inescapable. But despite all of this, the most prominent thing to me was the conversation I had with my friend as we drove away from her home. She turned to me and said, “It’s strange, leaving everything we’ve built, not knowing if it will be there when we get back.”

    This memory was foremost in my mind when I watched the video the United Nations released. Chapter One, titled “Climate and Our Planet” begins immediately with a striking introduction of a young woman escaping the Australian wildfires. This scene hits home for me and so many others’ experiences. For this project, I decided to send the video presented by the United Nations to a variety of family members and friends. After having them watch the video, I asked them three questions. These questions were meant to determine the effect that the video had on their perception of the video and whether or not they believed the video to be effective in its ability to shift their mindset on the topic. First, I asked the interviewees if they were aware of the climate issue before watching the video. Second, I asked if my viewers had personally experienced or noticed any of what they have watched. Third, I asked if they would recommend this video to others to watch.

    When it came to the viewer’s awareness, almost everyone I talked to mentioned that they were aware of the rising climate issues growing throughout the world. The lockdown during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic brought about the clearing of the canals in Venice, better air quality in many different areas, and an improvement in energy consumption as well, and two of my friends mentioned that they could physically feel that the air was cleaner during the lockdown. One friend recalled, “One thing that I have experienced firsthand was the wildfires on Mount Lemmon caused by lack of rain from climate change” (Anonymous, 2022). The Mount Lemmon wildfire burned down roughly 120,000 acres of land. This led to high levels of carbon dioxide in the air because of the smoke and burned down a beloved town in the mountain.

    However, this brought me to my next question. Though some of my friends may have been aware of these issues, I found that a large amount of the people I interviewed stated that they had not noticed the negative effect that climate change has in their day-to-day lives. I was a bit surprised by this response, but it does encourage me to try and become more intentional and aware of the world around me and how my actions affect it. The video is also a great reminder of this, and after watching it, many of my friends said they were more thoughtful about how their actions affected the climate around us. One friend stated, “…the video provided a bigger picture of what we, as humans, can do to slow down climate change” (Anonymous, 2022).

    In concern to my next question, which asked whether or not my friends would ever consider sharing the video presented by the United Nations, I received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback. Many of those that I interviewed said that the imagery was compelling and stirring, urging them to reconsider their stance on our planet’s worsening climate. One family member responded, “Many people are aware of global warming and climate change, but many do not consider the extent or realize how much it actually affects the environment and cities” (Anonymous, 2022).  This video is an inspiring and effective way to help spread awareness of the true effect of our worsening environment.

    In conclusion, I was glad to receive so much feedback from people I respect and love and was overall happy to see the conclusions they came to while watching the video. I believe that it is important to support one another through trying times such as that the video presents, and in sharing the video, I believe that my friends are more aware of the change of climate in our world.

    Works Cited

    United Nations. “Nations United: Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times | Presented by Thandie Newton.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVWHuJOmaEk. Accessed 25 October 2022.

    This page titled Friends and Family Response to Climate and Our Planet - by Alivea Addleman is shared under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Alivea Addleman at Pima Community College.