Title
Jason’s Climate Story
Name
Jason Zhang
Place
Glacier National Park, Alaska
How are you sensing climate change?
I went on a cruise to Alaska this past summer and got to view Glacier National Park from the ocean. I noticed many chunks of ice in the water that can’t have been from the ocean, since salt water doesn’t freeze. I’ve read so much about how climate change affects places like the Arctic and Alaska, but it was different seeing the glaciers in person. The ice was incredibly pure and empty, there were no buildings, cables, or people in sight. It was just water and ice and sky.
How do these changes make you feel?
I couldn’t stop thinking about how the boat’s intrusive presence. That the only way people could witness the purity of nature was by interrupting it. There was a long trail of slush that the ship churned up, and i could see the smoke coming from the pipes. I was uncomfortable and a little irritated at everyone on the cruise for taking a vacation out in Alaska. Plates of food were thrown out every day, and nobody seemed to care. Standing on deck, I eventually realized that I was also a person on the cruise, that I really was no different from anyone else. Even if I believed or noticed things differently, my actions and their consequences were exactly the same.
Glacier National Park, Alaska
Browse All Stories