PLANT GROWTH STAGES

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community

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INDIvidual solutions

The problem

COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS

“...controlled fire supports, salmon, elk, forage plants, and the systems they are enmeshed with” (Khokha 8:43)

We need active change

As an idividual, the role that fits me the best is guide. This role fits me the best because I feel as if I could contribute more to the fight against climate change with teaching people what I know, rather than being out there taking risks.

It is important for us in countries like the US, China, Russia, India to bring accountability to our governments on their plans to fight against climate change. They are very capable of bringing down their carbon emissions but do less than what they can. Although we do not always feel the effects of climate change directly, people in underdeveloped countries sure do, and they do not have the resources we do to fight against climate change. We see an example of this when Greta Thunberg states that we [richer countries] have to get our emission rates to 0 in 6 to 12 years. So that people in poorer countries are able to heighten their standards of living by building some infrastructure that we already have. Such as, clean water systems, schools, hospitals (Thunberg 3:00). In La Guajira, Colombia there is an erratic rain pattern causing food insecurity and lack of water. Due to this the women have to travel far to bring water back to their homes, while doing this they face dangerous conditions and violence.

As a community there are many things we can do to fight climate change in our own homes. However, it is also important to hold our governments and corporations accountable.

Something that needs to stay the same is the practice of cultural fire. These fires help maintain our forests in check so that when there is a fire it won’t be a fire that's uncontrollable. Cultural fires burn the twigs and bush that is overgrowing in the forests, this is important so that our forests can flourish. This highlights a positive relationship humans can have with the environment by showing how when we take care of our forests. When we do our forests will flourish and there will be less catastrophic fires. This is why it's important to let the Natives of California who have been practicing this for thousands of years continue burning their cultural fires.

We know that there is more our governments can do to lower the effects of climate change but just criticizing the government will not create change. We see that we can initiate the change. Xiye Bastida is a teenager like us and we see that although she criticizes the government she shows us how we can create solutions ourselves. We see this over multiple sources. There is a family in Baja california who prohibited fishing in their own reef and in a single generation the fish came back. These are changes we can make that do not change our way of living, easy changes we can make to better our planet and community.

"Those big countries - you know, we're talking about the U.S. and China, India, Russia - those are the ones largely responsible for the warming. But there are countries that have even more at stake because that's where the harshest effects of climate change are already happening" (Charles 2:42).

“Instead of talking about recycling, we started to write letters to our politicians to ban soft plastic altogether” (Bastida 2:05)

“...controlled fire supports, salmon, elk, forage plants, and the systems they are enmeshed with” (Khokha 8:43)