My partner Harvey and I visited Washington Square Park and asked people the questions, do you believe climate change is real, and do you think it will affect New York. We got around seven responses that said climate change was definitely real and it will affect New York. Two people although, believed that climate change was not real and said that the world was run on capitalism and not science.

This was interesting because even though we had heard from so many people that climate change was real, it was surprising to listen to people who believed that it was not. Even though some people did not think that climate change was real, it was still important to listen to a different perspective than what we had heard earlier.

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Harvey
Before the Flood

We watched a documentary called Before the Flood directed by Fisher Stevens and Starring Leonardo DiCaprio which talks you through the climate change crisis in an interesting and entertaining way. This documentary talks you through the effects and solutions of the climate change crisis. He travels around the world, talking to people from the Great Canadian Oil Sands, the Arctic Circle, Florida, China, and many others.

He explores the effects of climate change hands on, and discusses the topic with many local residents and business owners who call that place home. This gives the documentary a very personal and open perspective, allowing you to not only see the effects but actually experience what it is like to live there. The visuals are incredible to view, simply because it is so shocking to see some of the results that take place. For example, seeing a 30 foot cord of wire, that used to be under ice, all laid out is quite extraordinary. From that, to the scene of the barron oil sands and destroyed landscapes one compared to Mordor from Lord of The Rings, puts an incredibly strong view in your mind of where we are going.

However, later in the documentary, he visits Elon Musk and his Tesla Gigafactory, where they talk about the possibility of major solutions to climate change. He follows this with a visit to the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who discusses the Paris Climate Agreement, and how that can show the major initiatives shown by the U.S. and China are largely positive. This shows how there are solutions out there and people do care a lot about this issue.

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We interviewed people in Washington Square Park asking them the question of whether or not they think climate change is real and if so, do you think it’ll affect New York? We got about seven responses with the majority thinking that climate change is real and it will definitely affect New York whereas we had two people in the minority who believed that climate change was not something that humans could create and that the world was run by capitalism not science

We found this quite interesting because although we have heard from many people that climate change denial is fairly common to find people albeit in a small group that actually believed that it was not real, quite surprising. This let us to believe that despite the fact we found people who did not believe in climate change, we were happy to find that the majority still believed that it exists

However, despite the fact that we are disappointed that some people believe that climate change does not exist some calling it a hoax it is important that we are able to find people with a different perspective, and it was quite enlightening to see that that perspective does exist, and you can find it in the real world in abundance.

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Eliza believes that Climate Change can affect New Yorkers. An example of this is the flooding in Jamcia Bay. She talked about a way that houses become inhabitable is because of there not being enough green infrastructure. Not having enough green infrastructure can cause places to heat up. She mentioned that we can stop the spread by adding green to neighborhoods. She talked about how most neighborhoods that suffer from flooding are low-income areas.

We asked if she tries to stop Climate change, and Eliza said she does what she can, like using energy-efficient cars. She mentioned that not only one person can stop climate change and that we all must do our part. She added that we can help this electing people that want to stop climate problem.

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Eliza thinks that New York will change a lot due to the climate change crisis. Furthermore, Eliza also believes that climate change will affect a lot of New Yorkers’ lives for several reasons. These reasons include flooding in areas around Jamacia Bay and lower Manhattan. However, she also mentions that many projects are going on to help combat climate change issues such as green infrastructure, and how that can really help the entire environment.

She mentions the heat island effect and the thinking that depending on the amount of tree cover in a certain area, affects the temperature and living conditions of the inhabitants. She furthers this point by saying that these areas are almost always more low-income areas and that that is something to look into. She then again uses the example of Jamacia Bay to compare that level of income there, to areas that are much less flood-prone. She then mentions the east-river park rising to accommodate sea level rise.

When we asked her if she was making a difference in the climate change crisis, she replied that she does things like composting and using energy-efficient cars. However, she also mentions that although she makes her efforts, only her is not enough and it is more important to make sure that the people that we are electing into office are more trustowthy on this issue.

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