Why do I care about climate change?
It seems mad to think that although studying geography at GCSE and A-Level, it was only when studying physical geography at university over the past 3 years that I was actually taught about climate change and its seriousness! It then dawns on me that climate change has only been entirely confirmed as a cause of human activity for 2 years, since the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) released their 2007 report: despite obvious long term changes in climate since 1970! I was therefore fortunate to have been studying geography and stumbled onto a course about climate change and have since found myself fascinated.
Sitting in a lecture theater with a lecturer telling us that by 2100 the Sahara desert is likely to have reached Paris; the entire remaining population could be living on UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand “lifeboat” countries and that mean global temperatures could potentially increase by as much as 11ºC (being just some of the many shocking facts we had to get our heads round), I found myself increasingly concerned by the future climate we have to face. However, this wasn’t just me, throughout the 3 years at University I saw a class of students grow from initially leaving lectures talking about the next club they are going to, to eventually a group of worried faces looking absolutely terrified by the hard facts we had been hit with. I started to think “well if this is all true, why isn’t more being done to stop it?”, “why isn’t this something everyone is forced to learn about because it’s REAL and is happening NOW!” Now obviously the facts mentioned are alarmist and worst case scenarios, but they are possible, and the problem that faces us is how we can get people to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change without putting them off by stating the shocking possibilities of climate change. It was these thoughts that led me into researching volunteering opportunities, internships and careers linked with climate change.
I found myself on the Global Action Plan website and registered my interest with “Climate Squad” with the mindset that any sort of activity I do along the lines of climate change will help me get a related job! My first meeting with the Climate Squad leaders was at the launch of the UK Governments Copenhagen strategy at London Zoo, and have since been working as a volunteer intern!
If any of this sounds familiar and you want to open doors to new opportunities, learn more about climate change and get more people active about it, or even to just put something extra valuable on your CV, register your interest with Climate Squad now!
