Editorial The Science of Things

As seen by the photos in this week’s Chronicle, this past Saturday was Earth Day, celebrated via the collecting of garbage around town by fourth graders and planting of over 100 trees in parks.
Coinciding with Hampton’s activities was the March for Science on Washington, D.C., with marchers across the nation and internationally, moving in solidarity for the continued support of federal research and adherence to the validity of facts gathered with integrity to the scientific method.
The significance of these incidents of activism, to some, might go unnoticed, but Earth Day and the March for Science come at a crux in history, in which what we do now, will solidify our fate, approximately 50-100 years from now. In fact, every day, month, week or year has been a crux in history, in which our actions guarantee our world’s destiny.
Every day is a day we have a choice to continue on a path that leads us to an impending chaos. Every day we have the choice to continue our traditions, that science has shown, are resulting in climate change.
Last year, America became a guiding force for developing nations and first-world countries to take control of its contribution to climate change. We set new standards for miles-to-gallons, we set goals to reduce carbon emissions prior to 2005 levels by 2025, and was a leading force in signing the Paris Climate Agreement, which calls for global control of all emissions.
Under the Trump Administration, much of these groundbreaking regulations of emissions stand to go away, especially with the proposal to cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency.
There’s an adage that goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.” That’s an adage we should all adhere to. And Hampton planted trees on Saturday.
Climate change is a slow process, and much like life, we don’t see things changing right in front of us until a major thing happens.We don’t notice that a habit we have is making changes to our lives until we wake and notice our life isn’t so much the same as it used to be.
Think of a perfectly healthy person, who for whatever reason, decides to change their diet to feature more fats, sugars and starches, and they now sit at a desk for 13 hours a day. The perfectly healthy person will not develop health problems over night. That’s why we are likely to not do anything about these types of things that don’t change right away. If we can’t see the change, then what’s the point in doing something?
But over time, that person will develop poor posture, they will become fatigued and will gain weight. The unfortunate thing is that this person won’t notice these negative changes until they’ve already happened. And at that point, their habits will be so ingrained in them that it’s hard to get out of. It’s part of life that they sit all day, its part of life that their job doesn’t allow time for exercise and its part of life that their meals are unhealthy. Plus, anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that it’s way easier to put the pounds on than to take them off.
This is climate change, except that while we have the freedom to wreck our own bodies, we’re wrecking everyone’s habitat, whether we all wanted to or not.
So it’s a 0.02 degree temperature change, right? It’s not a big deal.
The 0.02 temperature change starts a chain reaction that impacts everything. Just like that person ate 20 donuts in one day, and their blood pressure only when up a couple points. But what we didn’t see is that their metabolism slowed down, it stored the donuts as fat and the person became more lethargic, deciding not to exercise.
The thing about climate change is that our actions have already sealed a fate 20 years down the line. A fate we don’t know, but according to radar pictures, ocean tests, soil reports and weather reports of the past, climate change is a real thing.
So real that we plant trees on Earth Day.
Talk to any member on the Hampton Tree Board and they’ll tell you the importance of preserving Hampton’s wildlife diversity, which has slowly deteriorated, as deforestation has occurred across the state, and native trees were replaced with “flowery” trees. Such actions kill the birds, kill the deer, kill the insects, harm our water ways and other chain reactions. The best time to care about this stuff was 20 years ago when we didn’t have the knowledge to. Now that we do, the time is now.
It’s why we send our children to pickup trash and fine peopler littering. Because trash and litter end up in our waterways. For a state that prides itself on wildlife and the outdoors, shouldn’t we be conserving those assets?
Science has shown that what we are doing does make an impact. However small. Just as walking every day doesn’t shed 20 pounds, but it does improve circulation and when done in large intervals along with a better diet, sheds those very pounds.
Just as we can plant trees as a step, we need to agree that the trees are beneficial if we want to decide to go a step further to cure them of blight, fertilize them and prune them.
But in order to do that we have to accept them. Accepting the science of climate change doesn’t make us guilty. In fact, most of the people on this planet are not guilty or culpable. But we are living in the circumstances, nonetheless.