Praveen’s Story

Title

Praveen’s Story

Name

Praveen Samuel

Place

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

How are you sensing climate change?

I am sensing climate change through the environment and weather conditions around me. I still remember one cold winter day, mid-December, when I had one of the best times of my life. The day was unremarkable in every way, one of those typical Philly snow days that were one in a thousand in frequency. To make it worse, it was one of those snow days where school wasn’t canceled. To some, a day like that may have seemed irredeemable; however, I saw it as a world of possibilities. My friends Stanislav, Omar, and Aditya and I were together during recess.“Go long!” I loved to yell, despite not having a clue what that meant as I chucked a snowball to the best of my ability. Nevertheless, going long and making people go long for those cold, white, fluffy balls of frozen water earned a special place in my mind that day. I was in awe at how the snow returned every year with as much vigor as the year before; that was a thought that I would never come to think again.

Over the the next few years, the tenacious and ever-abundant nature of the winter season changed. It started with weaker winters and less snow days. Over the past few years, winters have become barely recognizable and have a tenure of mere weeks. Winter is no longer the massive force it once was. The factories and constant offenders of pollution today have chipped down at the forces of nature. Global warming has reduced the seasonal snow to a fraction of what it once was and it will keep being affected for as long as the world resists change for the better.

How do these changes make you feel?

The changing winter season made me feel worried about what the future holds. Nature and the environment continue to be changed due to climate change, and we can often only feel helpless against the forces of nature.