M12.9- Climate Change

1. What do you personally find most troubling about climate change?
• Climate change is extremely troubling to me for many reasons, but the natural disasters scare me the most. Just today, two furious fires broke out here in California, just one year after the Sonoma County and Santa Barbara fires. Our earth is getting warmer, contributing to longer periods of drought and drier climates, and rising sea levels are producing horrible hurricanes and floods. I'm so scared to live anywhere in the United States, because I feel like we just can't escape it. 
2. As a public health professional, what do you think needs the greatest attention right now?
• I wish I could say everything, but fuel emissions and water use/waste need the biggest attention in my opinion. There are so many of us and not enough public transportation is being utilized. Traffic is horrible all the time, which makes idle cars contribute to the poor ozone layer. We waste so much water between showers, teeth brushing, cooking, and plastic water bottles that our natural resources cannot keep up. As with many public health issues, most people don't see the negative effects until they happen, leaving us with an uphill battle to climb. If people don't think they're contributing to the waste or that climate change won't affect them, they're seriously mistaken.
3. If you were visiting with a long-lost relative who had never heard about climate change, how would you describe it and its attendant human health and ecological threats?
• I would describe climate change as the result of humans' severe mistreatment and overuse of the earth's natural resources. Weather is short term, but climate can last forever, and we are drastically altering climates on every corner of the globe based on our behavior. After a certain point, all life forms will be compromised, and after we all get sick, we will have to fight for whatever resources we have left. At the bare minimum, we will experience a collapse of our food sources, leading to extreme hunger and widespread chaos. However, there is still time to reduce our gas emissions, our water usage, and our food waste.