Climate Change
October: a month when the trees begin to change colors, ACs are put into hibernation mode, and people bring out their warmer blankets and socks. But not this year. This year in NYC October is late.
Students wander the halls and streets dressed in something that resembles a mix between a Wookiee and a Chinese Crested – and this is even before Brooklyn College turned on its heating! And while some people enjoyed this extended summer these past days, I instead researched who the culprit might be.
It wasn’t that hard to figure out. I’ll give you a clue. This phenomenon (whose gender is unknown) stalks after every human being on this planet as if it’s just another yandere anime character. Any guesses? You got it – it’s climate change. Screaming: “Senpai, Notice ME!“, climate change is forced to take outrageous and most of the time dangerous (for both the love interest and the innocent bystanders) measures to ensure it receives the attention it very much deserves.
But, alas, just like Patrick in this meme – climate change is both dismissed and ignored.
People have tried banning climate change.
Tried saying that it’s just a myth, that it doesn’t exist.
“Trump has long derided climate science, famously calling climate change an “expensive hoax” and asserting in a 2012 tweet that the phenomenon “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.””
Quoted from this article by Eliza Relman.
Or even that it’s the same as global warming.
“”There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming, right?” Trump said. “That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place.”
(Trump’s claim that scientists have changed the terminology from “global warming” to “climate change” is also false. NASA scientists say that the terms have been used to describe different phenomena since 1975.)”
Quoted from this article by Eliza Relman.
“Global warming refers only to the Earth’s rising surface temperature, while climate change includes warming and the “side effects” of warming—like melting glaciers, heavier rainstorms, or more frequent drought. Said another way, global warming is one symptom of the much larger problem of human-caused climate change.”
Quoted from this article by Caitlyn Kennedy and Rebecca Lindsey.
But climate change can’t be dismissed any longer.
We shouldn’t ignore it any longer.
And according to this report (issued by numerous scientists sympathetic to climate change’s struggles) – we might not be able to.
“The UN report, which is based on more than 6,000 scientific references from 91 authors across 40 countries, outlines the impact of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It warns that the world is rapidly running out of time before the planet will see catastrophic effects.
Drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s climate-change body, the report calls for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.””
Quoted from an article by Sinéad Baker that can be found here.
“The world stands on the brink of failure when it comes to holding global warming to moderate levels, and nations will need to take “unprecedented” actions to cut their carbon emissions over the next decade, according to a landmark report by the top scientific body studying climate change.
With global emissions showing few signs of slowing and the United States — the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide — rolling back a suite of Obama-era climate measures, the prospects for meeting the most ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris agreement look increasingly slim. To avoid racing past warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels would require a “rapid and far-reaching” transformation of human civilization at a magnitude that has never happened before, the group found.”
Quoted from an article by Chris Mooney Brady Dennis that can be found here.
Climate change has once again gone to extremes to garner our attention and it has succeeded.
However – “Few countries are meeting the Paris climate goals. Here are the ones that are.” (Article by Amanda Erickson)
And, unfortunately, there are still people who doubt that climate change is an issue.
“”President Donald Trump on Tuesday cast doubt on a United Nations report warning that we have just 12 years to curb climate change by suggesting it wasn’t more credible than reports that say the environment is “fabulous.”
Trump said on the White House lawn on Tuesday that the UN report “was given to me.”
“And I want to look at who drew it, you know, which group drew it,” he said.
He suggested that other reports were as valid as the UN’s, though he did not specify any.
“I can give you reports that are fabulous, and I can give you reports that aren’t so good,” Trump said.”
Quoted from an article by Sinéad Baker that can be found here.
How much more proof does Trump or anyone else need?! We’ve got photographs, videos, eye-witness accounts, and even scientists that support all of this evidence with reports!
It’s time to grow up and face the truth. Climate change is real and it’s been trying to gain our attention since it first became news thirty years ago.
“We can’t pretend this isn’t happening anymore. Especially for us Americans, our general privilege and relative comfort can make it easy to turn a blind eye, but we don’t get to look away. We can’t pretend that some unnamed calvary is coming to save us. We are the adults in this room.
It’s not our fault, but it is very much our problem. At the same time, we have to be patient with each other, and kind. And then we need to dig in our heels and fight, for each other.”
Quoted from an article by Mary Annaïse Heglar and can be found here and here.
Who knows what the future will hold? Well, I’ll tell you who knows: We Do – the generation that has to live with the consequences. And if we don’t fight for our world, our future, our children’s future – no one will. So, ask questions, research, read, and simply – VOTE.
-L.L.L.
P.S. An interesting read for whoever has time and/or is intrigued by the topic of climate change and wants to know more is this article by Philip Goodwin:
Goodwin, P. (2018). On the time evolution of climate sensitivity and future warming. Earth’s Future, 6. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000889
Can Mice Remember?
Around February, a study was published that indicated that Alzheimer’s Disease in mice could be halted! The researchers running this study indicated that one of the main reasons for Alzheimer’s Disease is the buildup of plaques that force cells in the brain to stop communicating freely.
These plaques are caused by an abnormal buildup of beta-amyloid peptide and the researchers hypothesized that if they managed to force the enzyme that produces beta-amyloid peptide to stop working they could slow the creation of these plaques and hence reverse the early stages of the disease.
The study found that after inhibiting the enzyme entirely, a mouse would suffer “severe neurological defects” however at least they didn’t develop Alzheimer’s! When these mice were later bred with those that are more prone to Alzheimer’s,the resulting offspring slowly had their enzymes inhibited and Alzheimer’s did not develop.
While this study isn’t completely useful for people quite yet, it can be a useful start to treating a completely incurable and tragic disease. Although beta-amyloid peptide is incredibly necessary for other processes in our body, and simply deactivating the enzyme that creates it would cause numerous side effects that may make the treatment entirely not worth the loss of other functionality. Never-the-less Alzheimer’s Disease has been a roadblock in human health for a long time, and any progress in finding a cure is appreciated and important.
Source: https://futurism.com/scientists-reverse-alzheimers-in-mice
P.S New Research by the JNCASR (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research) indicates that using an enzyme on mice that doesn’t focus on destroying the creation of plaques but rather induces long term memory seems to have had promising results. Because this study did not attempt to tackle the creation of plaques but rather activate the ability to store long term memory (In healthy mice this enzyme induced acute long term memory) their novel treatment may at least improve the conditions of patients with Alzheimer’s and delay the degeneration of cognitive function. The team of scientists delivered the enzyme into the mice’s blood-brain barrier by attaching them to a glucose based nano sphere.
Eytan Galanter
The Junction Journal 
