UA students dedicated to combating climate change | News | uatrav ... - The Arkansas Traveler

UA students dedicated to combating climate change | News | uatrav.com

Climate change is arguably one of the most pressing issues of our time. Last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showed the past decade is likely the hottest period of the last 125,000 years.

Despite the severity of this issue, politicians often diminish its importance, with a Pew Research study finding that 65% of U.S. adults believe the government is not doing enough to reduce its effects. With environmental issues disproportionately affecting marginalized groups, many underrepresented youths have taken it into their own hands to fight for change.

Amelia Southern-Uribe, who uses they/them pronouns, grew up in South Florida during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism and political science with a minor in sustainability, they developed climate anxiety around 7 or 8 years old but did not have the vocabulary to verbalize their feelings, they said.

“Seeing that destruction around me and the influence that corporations have was devastating,” Southern-Uribe said.

When Southern-Uribe moved to Fayetteville eight years ago, they encountered a different climate issue, surrounded by multiple Fortune 500 companies. Going from the oil spill to a landlocked state with low education rates prompted Southern-Uribe to do something about climate change, they said.

Southern-Uribe formed Zero Hour Arkansas as a sophomore at Fayetteville High School in 2019. The chapter is a part of a larger nationwide nonprofit that defines itself as an “intersectional movement of youth activists fighting for a livable planet for all.”

After heading this initiative in high school, Southern-Uribe created the Zero Hour Arkansas registered student organization on campus.

“I think my biggest goal is to keep reaching young people in the environmental justice

movement and give them the platform to work with their communities and mobilize them,” Southern-Uribe said. “I especially have a passion for southern activism movements because historically, we’ve been left out of movements, but we are one of the most radical regions to live in.”

Caroline Grage, a senior earth science major and president of Students Advocating for the Environment, said she got involved with Zero Hour because she was excited to be a part of an organization that focuses on how people are connected to the climate crisis.

Grage serves as the climate anxiety coordinator for Zero Hour and hosts a monthly session to help guide members through climate anxieties and grief.

“I think the human experience and human connection are some of the most important things in life,” Grage said. “I want to do whatever I can to make those things better for others.”

Junior history and economics major “L” — a Zero Hour member who asked to have his name omitted, citing social anxiety — said he believes making sure people have access to a clean and safe earth should not be political but that money and greed are “poisoning our environment and our future.”

“People should care because for lack of a better term, environmental protection and justice is a matter of life and death,” L said. “We’ve seen the extinctions of numerous animals around the globe, we’ve seen temperatures rise, trash accumulate and our air become poison. If we don’t stop the attacks on our environment, we’ll be the next major extinction.”

L said he believes marginalized groups are most affected by climate change because they are the ones who have to deal with the consequences, including food shortages, inflation and relocation.

Southern-Uribe also said environmental justice affects all groups of people, especially those at a systematic disadvantage. For example, they said people living in a polluted or factory-heavy area are inherently put at an unfair power dynamic.

Gender and sex can also put people at a disadvantage. Climate change sometimes leads to congenital disabilities, which can affect the face, skull and heart regions or even lead to premature birth, according to the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

All disabilities are typically left out of the climate change conversation, something personal to Southern-Uribe because they were diagnosed with epilepsy in fifth grade, they said. Global warming can lead to heat waves, which can then increase the frequency of seizures, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Grage agreed that climate change issues are inherently rooted in classism, racism and sexism because those values are what the country is built on, she said. Exploitation will continue until the government considers the impact of its actions.

She said she believes people do not prioritize climate issues because it is the harder and more expensive choice. She said that the U.S. prioritizes profit and efficiency and environmental justice falls into neither category.

Southern-Uribe said they believe that environmental justice is not prioritized because the consequences are not immediate. Environmental justice is not a priority for Arkansas lawmakers and among citizens partly due to the state being ranked 47th in the nation for education in a recent WalletHub study.

“Being able to look at environmental justice through the lens of other social justice issues can help us increase and prioritize the work of advocates,” Southern-Uribe said. “We should prioritize environmental justice because of the effects it has on all of our communities.”