Are we ready for Climate Change?

By Luis Bravo

The East Boston Public Library, located at 365 Bremen Street, was chosen by Ruth Nieves, leader of the municipal initiative “Climate Ready Boston” (CRB) to carry out a series of “Conversations on Climate Change” with the neighbors, leaders and community organizers to understand the negative and devastating effects that the changes in the environment are causing in our neighborhoods, and to understand that if we do not take preventive measures from now, we will suffer very serious consequences.

These “Conversations on Climate Change” will also give us an accurate idea and answer the question “Are we ready for Climate Change?” And what actions can we take jointly and collectively to protect ourselves from the onslaught of nature?.

For these reasons, we interviewed Ruth Nieves on April 10th on the “PULSO” radio show of ZUMIX Radio 94.9 FM that airs every Tuesday from 2 to 3 in the afternoon, and this is what she told us:

“We humans are the only ones responsible for this drastic change that is happening in the climate. It is a tangible reality, and many do not want to see it or try to cover the sun with just one finger is another thing. They are afraid to think what they are going to do in the face of the misfortunes that we are already living, especially on the coasts of East Boston, Chelsea, Revere and all the surrounding cities.

Climate change is one of those activities of nature that surprises us without being prepared or without knowing in depth what produces it, or how we can face it or what we can do to reverse it. In other words, we do not have the corresponding information on this matter.

For many years, we have found ourselves in the middle of two debates, one scientific and the other political, between those who affirm and those who deny the truth of this situation on our planet.

Fortunately, the Mayor’s Office of Boston, along with other entities have taken the lead in this problem and are designing strategies, alternatives, and solutions to mitigate in a certain way the adverse effects of the damage that we are causing in nature.

This is how the “Climate Ready Boston” initiative was born that recruited volunteers interested in this problem, and trained them to inform and create awareness in the different homes, communities, and neighborhoods of the city.

So that is my mission. There is a lot of information in English, and that is why we have dedicated ourselves to make the presentations in Spanish, and to motivate our mothers, fathers, and the community in general, to participate in all these talks we are going to offer in all the venues of the different cities.

Everywhere there are people who are interested in calling on all the neighbors to ask us to teach us how to recycle.

Only 10% of what we recycle is effective, while 90% goes to the ocean (which was demonstrated by Green Peace), and if we continue like this, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish.

All the seafood we are eating (fish and shellfish basically) have a high content of plastic contamination, because they eat it thinking it is food and therefore, it is the plastic that damages our health, that is, it is all a vicious circle, what we put in our mouths is contaminated.

It is time to ask our authorities, our councilors, and the government itself to install and move to a renewable energy system. We have the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT, which has all the technology to produce solar panels.

We are in an excellent area to create energy with wind, we do not need to continue using oil, we should ask for better service and demand more frequency in public transport to avoid environmental pollution, and these are the small things we have to implement and we have to do it NOW, because there is no time, time is gaining on us.

Whales are disappearing, and whales have the main function: their excrement goes to the bottom of the sea, and this breaks down in such a way that it helps the ocean to play an important role in the very life of the ocean and the planet.
Every animal, every plant, however tiny they are, has an important function in the balance of this planet, and the function of us human beings, seems to be to ruin it.

It is very regrettable that we do this because of our ignorance, lack of information, or our bad habits and habits acquired by technology. We have to demand large corporations like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and others to use plastics, but biodegradable plastics. The plastic used that is in the sea, can wrap around the planet three times.

We can use recycled paper because it is not fair that we continue cutting trees to make these types of items for the cafeteria because enough of this deforestation is enough.

This administration, upon exiting the Paris Agreement – which is an agreement within the framework of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change that establishes measures for the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) through mitigation, adaptation and resilience of ecosystems against Global Warming, its applicability would be for the year 2020, when the Kyoto Protocol expires – it has hurt us deeply with the resources that we would have received for remaining in this agreement, but fortunately Massachusetts has several politicians working on the issue of Climate Change and we continue to do our work.

What I want to achieve with this conversation is that everyone improves their attitude about recycling in their home. We cannot continue throwing away garbage in the same way as before. There is garbage from food waste and garbage to recycle. I want to awaken the conscience of all family members to stop buying plastics because everything has to do with the economy, which is such an important issue because we buy many things packaged, and many things that come in plastic and we throw that away, that is, we have to go back to the time of the 70s, when we went to the markets and brought the loose products in our straw or fabric baskets. We have to think that all that plastic trash goes to the sea and pollutes its waters.

The sea is a regulator of the winds and that is why now the storms are so impetuous, disastrous and even deadly.

There will come a time when we will not be able to eat our money to save ourselves, heal us or heal us from all the diseases that affect us by consuming contaminated products. Once again, the plastic ingested by fish and shellfish contaminates their organism and is transported to our organisms when we consume them by altering our hormones, our immune system, and even our sleep. In itself, a great damage, a huge damage to the health of all of us.

Really, are we ready for Climate Change?