Gabrielle’s Story #2
Over the past few years, I have been experiencing and noticing the appearance of climate change.
Over the past few years, I have been experiencing and noticing the appearance of climate change.
Today was notably filled with emotion and conversation, because of the historic rainfall from Hurricane Ida the night before.
I notice that the snow days I once treated as a frequent occurrence no longer occur so frequently anymore.
I am sensing climate change through the environment and weather conditions around me.
I’m scared for where humans are leading this world, I’m worried about the future of our planet and our own future.
I felt climate change when Hurricane Sandy stormed through my city in 2012.
In my hometown of Beaver, PA, coal and steel production was historically extremely important sectors of employment.
They make me feel sad and upset that local leaders are so glib about impending threat.
It was depressing to experience a beautiful park for the first time and see how fragile the ecosystem is.
My family huddled up in one room with air conditioning and even with it, it was still 80 degrees in there.
It got up to 100.
They make me feel sad and worried for my mama’s home, and my family’s home, and if future generations are going to have the same Earth we want them to have.
Some people had to swim out of their second story windows in the middle of night, while others went on rescue missions in the boats they kept in their garages.
However, last year when I returned home for Winter Break from Penn and walked outside of Union Station, the first thing I noticed was how warm it was outside. It felt like spring and I was very concerned right away because I thought about how hot it was the past summer.
The turn of the seasons only an hour from the place I’d spent my eighteen years was unpredictable and mysterious to me.
This situation makes me really concerned and fearful for older people who do not have loved ones to help them stay safe or rebuild after a natural disaster like this.
I fell witness to the slow destruction of my neighborhood, watching stray animals die, houses and trees collapse, and cars on the road crash all because of Hurricane Ike.
Over the years, climate change has affected the manatees ability to survive in their waning habitat.
When I was the same age as Daniel, I remember blizzards that would cancel school for a week, snow so high that my dad and I would make igloos out of them, snow so heavy I could sink waist deep. Core memories that don’t just pale in comparison, they hurt.
In class, we spent time gazing out the wide-paned windows to catch deer and bobcats stalk the barren mountains outside instead of study the math worksheets and history books in front of us.
As I drove around my hometown, I noticed many stores closed for repairs and tons of damaged cars resulting from tornadoes that struck this area during the storm.
For what seemed like forever, the skies became orange and hazy and it became normal to see smoke somewhere. The smell of burning wood and building materials permeated the air.
My nostrils burned a little more with each inhale as I realized that there must be a wildfire somewhere close by.
I don’t know if I should dress warmly or wear something that won’t make me sweat all day.
The game was no longer trying to play your best so you wouldn’t get subbed out, but to conserve your energy under the hot sun so that you wouldn’t pass out from the heat.
With the heat rising, the sun would beat down against the pavement and fry us.
Just knowing that something like this is possible is horrifying.
I get frustrated because I know that the weather is not like how it used to be.
Those families that can barely afford bad quality food but still want to keep their families healthy have to suffer and choose what they should prioritize more: health or supporting their family financially.
Or we can use our mistakes and clean the air of its smoky waste. We have little time as humans, but our world has more.
As Christmas came closer and closer, I waited for the first bit of snow to arrive. I waited and waited, but not one flake of snow fell down from the sky that December.
The first time I ever climbed that tree, I had two impressions. But the second one is the one that stands out the most in my mind. Trash.
The young campers between ages six and eight complained about not feeling well and nearly fainted as some had in the previous summers due to these heat waves.
During the summer of 2022, the temperature was so high, there were a lot of days where the temperature had reached over 100℉.
There was nothing left alive in the Schuylkill river. Nothing except us.
Something is missing. It’s hard to place. But then I see it: one lonely floating light. Where are all your friends, little firefly?
As these problems remain unresolved, the impact will grow exponentially.
I have seen first hand how fast climate change has begun to exponentially make itself known.
There’s an increasing contrast between periods of snow and no snow, periods of warm and cold.
People are uniquely aware of the effects of climate change yet at the same time strangely resistant to change.
The violent winds lifted me up into the air. It would’ve succeeded if it wasn’t for my dad anchoring me down.
Through my health and home.
Holding infant-me, my parents huddled on the kitchen floor in order to avoid the windows. Because of the raging hurricanes in the summer of 2004…
Ohio was home for the first eighteen years of my life. Since leaving it, however, it has become refuge.
When I awoke on the morning of September 9, 2020. I was extremely confused. My bedroom was almost completely dark, which was, of course, very unusual…
My family has a cabin in Kentucky. When my dad was growing up, they would do the usual drive…
Nowdays I have sensed climate changes very much as the way I dress and specially my mood.
In 100 years, my hometown will have the same climate at Richmond, VA!
I have sensed climate change with the air pollution and pollen seasons.