This September, nine JCU female students launch Green Consciousness, a blog devoted to the environment.
Climate Change Special Edition
By Erika Macrina / Matthew staff and blogger
Welcome to Green Consciousness. Our mission is to convince young people that climate change is an existing problem, and we should all take action to arrest it. Our time is now.
The group is committed to writing about real stories and issues that surround our local reality and that can be relatable for other students like us. The blog content covers a range of different topics published in nine main sections: Activism, Climate Change, Food, Green Reviews, Local Issues, Pollution, Student Resources, Sustainable Lifestyle, and Transportation.
The Green Consciousness team is led by editors and writers Alice Finno and Caitlyn Davis; Giada Gavazzi is the designer and techie; Francesca Antonelli manages the Instagram page. The staff writers are Polina Ludenkova, Milena Chmielarczyk, Neddie Clews, Rian Ignasiak, Erika Macrina, and Isabella Marchese. The blog was designed as a project for the DJRN 380 course, Writing for Advocacy.
We as students are not fully aware of the impacts of climate change. Terrible things always seem far from our reality and can be difficult to grasp as a real concept. When the pandemic started, we were told that China was fighting against a new virus, it seemed so far away from us and our countries; but COVID-19 reached Italy quickly. In the same way, it is easy for students in Rome to detach from the climate crisis, as we do not experience the most devastating effects of climate change in our everyday lives. However, climate-related events are not so far from us: deadly floods, destructive fires, weather inconsistencies, record-breaking heat, and countless other issues have recently been affecting Italy in particular.
The little care and attention for what surrounds us as young adults consequently affects the planet and is a problem that should make us, the next generations, reflect on our future actions.
We as students are not fully aware of the impacts of climate change. Terrible things always seem far from our reality and can be difficult to grasp as a real concept. When the pandemic started, we were told that China was fighting against a new virus, it seemed so far away from us and our countries; but COVID-19 reached Italy quickly. In the same way, it is easy for students in Rome to detach from the climate crisis, as we do not experience the most devastating effects of climate change in our everyday lives. However, climate-related events are not so far from us: deadly floods, destructive fires, weather inconsistencies, record-breaking heat, and countless other issues have recently been affecting Italy in particular.
The little care and attention for what surrounds us as young adults consequently affects the planet and is a problem that should make us, the next generations, reflect on our future actions.
These feelings of anxiety surrounding environmental topics are not just a figure coming out of people’s imagination – they are real and can cause physical and mental symptoms. These feelings of being worried about climate issues are named: eco-anxiety and eco-guilt.
As human beings, we must view ourselves as part of a team with the rest of life on Earth: we shape it and it shapes us. Characteristics of nature are similar to those of a personality trait; they are related, complementary, and if one suffers, the other suffers too. To be in a good relationship with the environment means considering the best interest of the more-than-human world as well as one’s own best interest and caring for the health of the entire ecosystem we live in as we do with our individual health.
Through Green Consciousness we envision a “good life” where people can achieve a sense of contentment through their union with the non-human world and focus on improving themselves, instead of trying to achieve satisfaction in the accumulation of material goods.
With each article, our goal is to get more readers to understand the effects and causes of human action on the environment with the hope of reshaping our relationship with it. University students can advocate to pressure world leaders for a real environmental change to happen. Education is an effective resource: when we are more aware of the topic and have a better understanding, we will be more motivated to take action. If we put our minds and hearts towards a new ecological direction, it will be transformed into material action.
Join the change and visit our site at djrn380.wordpress.com/
From January 2022 the blog will be opened to all JCU students, so feel free to send your articles at grassroots@johncabot.edu to be featured on the blog!
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