Perhaps one of the most common issues with the modern-world is the presence of Climate Change. I’m certain that term does not require any explanation to any person who is reading this, but perhaps one thing that can be explained is that Climate Change is not just an environmental issue, but also a social one as well. This idea was new to me at one point as well. Sure climate change causes ice to melt, the sea to rise, or some places to get hotter. But it also effects people as well (duh). But what truly makes this a social issue? The effects of climate change hit poorer people harder than rich people. Its harder for people who can’t afford high electricity bills to keep an A/C on through a heat wave or long summer. Or with droughts happening around the world, the only way to access clean drinking water is by purchasing it with money. And flooding along with these droughts in certain places make it harder to grow food, so the prices go up.  There are many more reasons that can be looked into, but those three are the pretty big ones. But as I said earlier, this concept was unknown to me at one time. So how did I find this out? The answer is simple: research.

Throughout my career as a student, I have written many papers for various classes. One thing that I was always told was “it’s easier to write about something you already know”. So, being from California’s Central Valley, an area ruled by agriculture and struck by drought, I knew plenty about Climate Change. So that was always an easy topic for me to write about. The Effects of Climate Change. What Can We Do About Climate Change? Man-made and Natural Causes of Climate Change. All of these are papers I have written, along with a plethora more. But each time I wrote about it, I changed the viewpoint of climate change. And with this change in view, I researched more and more. I started learning about all the different aspects of climate change, such as global warming, drought, flooding, rising sea level. But then, I started coming across pages that talked about how a certain group of people were affected even more by climate change. The lower class struggled more than the upper class from the effects of climate change. I read more and more and it became apparent to me that the well being of people depend on the climate change crisis. All of these new ideas and opinions were opened up to me, and all because I needed to write some papers. So in that way, literacy opened up my eyes to the social aspect of climate change.