Sustainability is an important and vital element to our society that must be spoken about and acted upon! The ice caps in polar regions are melting, habitats are being destroyed and the climate is changing rapidly. There are scarily hundreds of negative impacts caused by climate change so we must prevent climate change on our environment now.
Climate change is a global epidemic that is negatively impacting all walks of life. It is caused by an excess amount of CO2 and other pollutants found in the air, which is blanketing the earth allowing global temperature to rise. Human impacts such as the production of plastics, combustion to generate energy, fracking, mismanagement of water within cities, corruption and misinformed societies are all leading to irreversible changes to the environment.
The environment is talked about a lot in my community which has made me passionate about it. I have been a part of a sustainable fashion club in my school in which we are spreading the idea about sustainable fashion to the entire student body. We are projecting our message by hosting a fashion show at our school. The fashion show will be displaying sustainable brands in the local community. This is spreading the word by informing people what sustainable fashion is and what they can do to become more sustainable with their clothes.
Our school constantly thinks about sustainability. Recently we have had a plastic-free week in which we tried to minimise the amount of plastic we used during the week. To reduce plastic use we brought in reusable water bottles to school rather than buying single-use ones in the cafeteria. This will reduce the impact of the environment since it will reduce the number of single-use water in landfills. Which would then reduce the amount of greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.
The cafeteria has also recently replaced the single-use plastic utensils with metal cutlery. This means that the cutlery can be reused reducing the quantity of plastic in landfill. Which would have ended up emitting toxic gases into the atmosphere. Furthermore, during equality week at the BSN, there was a day focusing on sustainability and the environment. During the day there were a variety of activities that taught students as well as teachers the effects of single-use plastics, the use of fossil fuels and many other contributors to climate change. These stalls were all ran by students with the help from teachers which was an empowering thing to see since teachers were learning from the students and discussing environmental issues in the current news.
However, sustainability is not just discussed at school. In my local community sustainability is thought about a lot as well. Single-use plastic bottles can be brought back to supermarkets for money. This is done to promote recycling in the community since the bottles are then cleaned and brought back to the factories to then be reused. This directly reduces the carbon footprint of our community.
In support of this, there has been a recent protest in my community about the sustainability of the larger communities surrounding my area. During the protest, people of many different ages and backgrounds united to face the problem which is climate change. To see this protest was inspirational due to everyone being passionate about saving our planet and providing a better future for the generations to come. What initially sparked the protest was a young girl called, Greta Thunberg, who protested by not going to school. She protested outside the Riksdag, a political building in Sweden, about climate change and the use of fossil fuels. Due to her empowering decision to protest many like her followed in her footsteps. Many youngsters around the world created their own protests in their communities. This lead to multiple protests around the globe of young children fighting for a better future for us.
To summarise, sustainability is something that needs to be talked about more because it is something that is occurring now. Young people like Greta should speak out about our sustainable future. We should influence those in charge to make changes to benefit the younger generations. This can be done by speaking out about your own opinions of sustainability to your local powers to get the cleaner and greener future we want.
