Global Studies Program
Capstone Topic:
For my senior year capstone project, I researched climate change and its impacts on the planet and people, specifically the poorest and most desolate, resource strained parts of the world. For my sophomore year thesis paper, I wrote about legal issues involving climate change and that sparked my interest in this topic. I focused on small nations such as Haiti and islands on the Pacific Coast. Specifically, I focused on how weather and geological events sparked by cliamte change cause significantly more long-term damage in third world countries and poorer communities. Another important piece of information that I learned was that the biggest countries in the world such as China, the United States, and Inda, emit the most carbon into the atmosphere yet the smaller countries that emit much less carbon are the people experience s the consequences of actions that are not theirs. For one of my final projects, I will write a short story about a person, most likely a child, coping with becoming a climate refugee as their world collapses around them due to the devastation of climate change.
Image from un.org
Exerps From Research Paper:
Thesis: "Climate change is the leading factor in the destruction of the planet and human society; millions of people will lose their homes and livelihoods in the coming years if climate change is not reversed. However, climate change is as much an issue of equality as it is an issue of safety. While climate change will affect everybody, the Earth’s poorest and most vulnerable people will be hit with the worst waves of climate change's deadly effects."
Wildfires: "Developed countries can handle the impacts of a raging fire more efficiently and successfully than a third world country. In an area that is unequipped to handle the devastation of a climate change induced wildfire, the consequences are deadly. In Batswana the wet seasons have changed from the impacts of climate change. In 2008 an abundance of grass grew and fires ignited quickly. For 50 days a fire burned through the fragile economy that relies on its nationals parks of indegenous grazing lands for survival. Batwsana struggled from lack of resources to control the fire and the damage was intensely problematic to the already delicate economy."
Typhoons, Heavy Rains, and Earthquakes: "A 2018 report from Haiti shows that from the 563 earthquakes in the past 20 years have left 747,000 people dead. In 2022, Haiti is in crisis trying to recover from another earthquake that hit in August of 2021. Haiti used to be one of the world's richest colonies but today over 50 percent of the country lives below the poverty line. The Council on Foreign Relations credits this drop in success to foregin intervention and natural disasters."
Conclusion: "Humanity will be changed forever because climate change is not a problem of the future, it is a problem of today and people who are already living in desolate and impoverished conditions will suffer the brunt of climate change's deadly impacts."
View my research paper here
