Factually, everybody knows that the climate changes. With dinosaurs once walking the Earth to the Ice Age, climate changes are inevitable. Many are aware of the effects that speed up this change, but not much concern is found for preventing some of the downsides that not only affect the climate negatively, but the health and atmosphere of Earth in general. Science teacher, Angie Anderson, describes the chemical and weather change related to pollution.

“Anytime you have a lot of trash built up, as it’s decomposing, it’s giving off methane, and so the more methane it gives off, the more methane gets trapped in the atmosphere and then the hotter it’s going to get. It’s such a doomsday kind of thinking, but if we would do little things like recycle and keep as much trash out of landfills as we could, that’s going to help a lot. We could even somehow harness that methane that’s being given off and burn it for energy. Some places are doing that, but not nearly enough. I think if more people were educated on this topic, then they would definitely be more in favor of doing things like that,” Anderson said.

Pollution can come in many varied forms, but one that can often slip one’s mind are phones.

“You plug them into a wall. That wall is connected to some power plant somewhere or electric co-op
and then that power is typically generated here in Missouri using coal,” Anderson said.

It is mind boggling to think of the amount of pollution that can be caused from things that seem so harmless. However, with the help of research, efforts have been made to address the situation.

“Solar energy is one of the most economically friendly forms of alternative energy. It’s pretty efficient. The costs have come down a bit in the past 20 years. We have a really good set up here in Rolla, where we have several banks that have solar panels on their drive thru’s, so they’re collecting energy all the time and using it. We have a huge solar farm out by the industrial park. I think this school building would be a great place to put a lot of solar panels. We haven’t done that yet, I think it is a cost issue, but if it wasn’t an issue we would definitely do it. We would earn our money back because if you have any kind of alternative energy on your home or business, you can connect it to the grid and when you’re not actually using it, you can sell it back to the electric company and it kind of offsets how much you paid for it and how much you actually use it,” Anderson said.

Not only does solar energy help the environment, but according to the United States Green Building Council, solar energy reduces energy bills, can earn an owner tax credits, and reduce dependence on harmful gases produced from fossil fuels and coal. However, science teacher, Chelsea Millis, believes it will be hard to apply solar energy to one’s everyday life.

“Tesla offers solar panels, and I don’t know how much they are, but their cars are 80,000 dollars. So thinking about that is just wild. It’s expensive, I think it’s kind of hard to implement and they are already doing something that works and is cost efficient. Big companies and corporations aren’t going to switch over easy and they might be the ones putting out the propaganda that climate change isn’t real,” Millis said.

While there are resources to execute alternative energy, as people nowadays, it is easier to stick with the methods of today and procrastinate until it is necessary to take action. Not only are temperatures rising, but as pointed out by The Climate Reality Project, there are more heatwaves, increase of lyme disease, and decrease in air quality. This type of pollution can not be done on its own. Now this example is a bit extreme, but little things always help.

“Please recycle. I recycle normal batteries. I take them to the recycling center, and they actually drain them out and take apart the resources and reuse them elsewhere. I have a container in my room for dead batteries. So if people have dead batteries or just normal everyday batteries…I don’t want car batteries, I don’t want boat batteries, just normal double A, triple A batteries. Those kind of batteries I will gladly take to the recycling center,” Anderson said.

Although Earth will always be changing in ways that are good and bad, Millis believes climate change will be taken care of.

“We can make it less of a problem to humans because I don’t think Earth cares. The Earth doesn’t care if we heat the ocean and then that causes more heat to be absorbed because the Earth can change and that’s not going to matter. What does matter is the life on Earth and how that’ll be impacted by all the stuff we’ve caused” Millis said.

Anderson agrees with this statement.

“We as humans have impacted the Earth a lot so far. I think that we can do such great things as a human race. I think that we’re completely capable of helping to slow down this issue, even though this is a natural issue. We won’t have to change our lifestyles or our current thinking just to deal with climate change. So I think if we could do little things like recycle, or change to alternate forms of energy, that’s definitely going to have a big impact,” Anderson said.