Naqib Mazumder (Y9): Climate change in Geography
“We are on the highway to climate hell, with our foot still on the accelerator.”
— António Guterres
This was a quote taken from the UN Secretary-General’s speech at the COP27 summit held in Egypt almost a year and a half ago now. Climate change is a worldwide problem, that affects billions. Guterres said before this, “The eight billionth member of our human family will be born, [...] How will we answer when baby eight billion is old enough to ask, What did you do to our world and our planet when you have the chance?”.
He has a point. This climate crisis doesn’t only affect the current generation, but future generations beyond us. That’s why at Westminster Academy, we believe that educating the future on the current climate crisis is a part of a crucial step to combat it.
Every two terms in Geography, we learn about a new continent or region. And when we learn about these, we also learn about the effects of climate change that happen in these areas. Let us take what Year 9 did last term for example, which was Antarctica and the Arctic. We learnt about how global warming and other parts of climate change affect the continents.
When learning about Antarctica, we discussed and did activities on the current environment of the white continent and the worries scientists and others have on the future of it. We learnt about the potentially profound effects of climate change on Antarctica such as it melting. For example, Antarctica contains so much ice (90% of the world’s in fact) that if it were to all melt, sea levels would rise by 60 metres. This would eradicate several countries around the world and severely devastate nearly everyone else.
So why does education about climate change matter? Well students can be taught on the effects of the climate crisis and how to adapt. But, just as importantly, according to the UN, education motivates young people to take action. Being properly taught about a topic like this also helps people take informed decisions when doing everyday actions to further benefit the environment, such as recycling certain waste rather than just throwing everything away.
So why don’t we give baby eight billion and more to come a future where they are not burdened by the destruction of their own planet that was continued by us? Let’s turn around and work together to stop climate change.
Naqib Mazumder (Y9)
Geography subject prefect