When shopping around Fort Collins, you might have noticed that stores now charge a disposable bag fee in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. The city of Fort Collins is trying to do its part to bring America down from being ranked number two as the worst global polluting country in the world, second to China.  Experts are pointing to a drastic decline in environmental health, so much so that Earth’s environment and weather are already visibly changing. We are feeling the effects right now, which has eroded many folks' hope that any significant environmental change will ever occur. 

In the summer of 2020, the skies above Fort Collins were filled with dark gray ash. The mountains to the west were illuminated by the orange glow of the massive Cameron Peak Fire, which scorched over 200,000 acres of land over the course of roughly four months, making it the biggest wildfire in Colorado's history. The Cameron Peak Fire was both one of a long series of increasingly destructive wildfires that occurred in the summer of 2020 and a harbinger of an unfortunate new reality: The climate crisis is no longer a far-off possibility we have time to prevent.

When it comes to the climate, there are numerous tipping points that human society is nearing or even already passed. A tipping point is defined as a threshold that, when passed, results in irreversible changes. When applying this concept to the environment, it's easy to see why understanding the impact of these climate tipping points and how we can avoid passing them is of utmost importance because, after all, this is irreversible damage we are now dealing with.

Eco-anxiety is something that impacts our lives in many ways, and a lot of Generation Z struggles with imagining what our future will hold amid such an intense climate crisis. For a lot of us, the idea of the future includes potentially having children.  According to a poll by the Morning Consult, “1 in 4 childless adults cite climate change as a ‘major or minor’ reason they don’t have children.” 

As Colorado State University students head to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also called COP26, climate change is on the minds of many here on campus. CSU boasts its renowned sustainability, but the actions of one university feel infinitesimally small when the scope of global climate change affects, well, the entire globe.

The climate strike that took place on Colorado State University’s campus Oct. 8 brought a variety of different causes together under a collective call for systemic change and radical action.

Like several cities across the country, Fort Collins is committed to achieving 100% renewable electricity in the coming years. This commitment ultimately determines Colorado State University’s own goals, since the University gets about 85% of its electricity from the City according to CSU’s campus energy coordinator Stacey Baumgarn.

Eco-anxiety is real, and we are feeling it now more than ever. Every day, our timelines are flooded with news about the ongoing climate crisis. It’s not hard to see that we are dealing with a very real problem — one that needs to be carefully addressed to ensure life as we know it can continue.