By Jordan Beaubois, News Editor
Artistic depiction of Mother Nature withering away – Photo provided by Joinn Free Photos
2024 is now the hottest year on record with an increase of 1.5 degrees celsius overall throughout the year. The reason why that 1.5 is as crucial as it is, is because in the Paris Climate Accords it wrote that the limit to this global warming shall be no more than 2, for crossing that threshold would birth massive potentially irreparable damage.
The effects of this changing climate and warmest year can be seen throughout the entire world, especially those greatly affected in coastal regions and mountain ranges. The destruction witnessed in the North Carolina floods, southern California wildfires, and record low snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas. Below are two pictures taken one year apart in the same exact location at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Pictures of the (state of) Nevada side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range with 1 year between them – Photo by Katheryne Beaubois
Beaubois, who provided the pictures above, lives in the Carson Valley of Nevada and spoke about the lack of snowfall. “The Carson Valley is ripe with beef cattle and extraordinary producers of hay and alfalfa. With limited Sierra snowfall, it has a direct effect on our resources, limiting our crop rotations and thereby limiting feed and export of our products.” Said by Beaubois.
The snow from the Sierra Nevada melts throughout the remainder of the year and provides copious amounts of water to the Great Basin to assist in the grass the cattle eat and various other crops. Many of the other regions in the Western parts of the continental United States rely on both rainfall and snowfall (and its subsequent melt and water runoff) to not only benefit their flora and fauna, but also energy in places like Hoover Dam where the famous Lake Mead has still not fully recovered from the two long years of the most recent drought that burden those who live in the region.
Climate anxiety has never been higher, and the unfortunate reality with the recently inaugurated President Donald Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords for the second time and his promise to “drill, baby, drill!” Increasing the industrialization of valuable finite resources such as oil and coal. It appears anxiety will rise in regards to the climate, especially those in the United States of America.
To conclude, Laudato si’ was the second encyclical given by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic church and the head of state for the Holy See (Vatican City), where the message conveyed the critiques of consumerism, irresponsibility, environmental degradation, and global warming. Calling citizens across the globe to take action to protect this pale blue dot… Hope must remain alive that the 2 degree threshold is not passed in this new year, that the human species does not continue to abuse Mother Nature and to not rape her beauty that she puts on display for all to bare witness and admire.
The Saint 