Proyecto ComUNIDAD
For this project, me and my fellow students were able to connect and socialize with other students from Tijuana’s Instituto México Americano del Noroeste through Skype and weekly Instagram posts. We were also able to research and discuss some form of injustice or issue that is related to the Mexican/American border. For this research we looked for various websites and articles that had information that is related to our topic, and conduct interviews with experts that are connected to the issue we are researching. As our final product, we created papel picado with various words, patterns, and images that represent the topic we have been researching and an essay that contains all of the information we have gathered and what we have done for this project.
What Communities are Doing About the Future of Climate Change in San Diego and Tijuana
By: Aidan Parral
Research Introduction
During the past few years climate change has become an increasingly large problem for everyone and ignoring this will not decrease its severity. For this project I have been focusing on climate change and, what Tijuana and San Diego are currently doing to combat this problem. I have chosen this as my research topic because climate change is a large problem that is often overlooked in our current political environment and is progressively becoming a bigger problem over time. In addition, we should focus more on decreasing factors that support climate change such as greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation, otherwise there will be severe consequences in the future that may threaten our way of life.
For my final product I have been assisting a group in creating a small film reel for exhibition. This film reel will show various moments and interactions students had with their IMAN partners which range from awkward technical difficulties, to discussions that are related to a students research topic. I have been contributing by pulling out certain clips that students have requested from each recording of the conversations. I have also been experimenting in Garage Band to see if I can create a tune that our group can use for the film.
I have learned about several organizations that focus on combating environmental issues such as ‘I Love a Clean San Diego’ or ‘The Environmental Health Coalition’. Most of these organizations work in the San Diego region, but there are others that work in the Tijuana region such as ‘The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve’. I have also interviewed someone from this organization that specializes in this topic. This was extremely helpful and provided me with a lot of information about environmental topics such as greenhouse gas emissions and the future of climate change.
I would have liked to learn more about statistics related to this topic, which is very helpful information when trying to prove a point and simply interests me. I also wanted to see examples of how some people are innovating to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I believe that creative people can be encouraged to innovate and find a way to decrease greenhouse gas emissions in their own way. Finally, I would have also liked to know more about how San Diego and Tijuana are expanding their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions on a larger scale. I want to know more about the logistics behind their efforts.
I don’t interview often but, I believe it will be required to answer some of the questions that I have. Thankfully, me and a few other students were able to communicate with a researcher from the ‘Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve’. I think it would have been helpful to interview someone that may not specialize in environmental studies, but is aware that these issues exist. I hoped I could have a discussion with my partner in Tijuana and see if he can offer his opinion on this topic, but when I mentioned the topic to my partner, the conversation did not go very far.
Climate change is a huge problem that we can solve, but not if we are unable to work together. We have several examples of our efforts to stop this issue from becoming an even larger problem, but I think we can do more. We need to do what we can now so then future generations can appreciate the earth we stand on today.
Research Process
As we did our early investigations while reading Into The Beautiful North, by Luis Alberto Urrea, I explored a few topics which include: the drug trade, poverty and homelessness in Mexico, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The drug trade, in my opinion, was the most interesting topic I researched because of the intense and shocking details that I discovered while researching. Ultimately, I decided to not drive deeper into any of the three topics and instead focus on environmental issues.
For my method of research I simply browsed through the internet. If I found something that interested me, I would dive deeper and see if the source is worth holding my interest. Some examples of these sources include: The Environment Health Coalition, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Climate Action Campaign. I would also get recommendations from fellow students or my teacher.
While looking through the Internet, I was able to find a few organizations that relate to my topic of interest. One of those organizations was the Climate Action Campaign, which started in 2015, and whose goal is to stop climate change through policy action. The Climate Action Campaign is a small organization that has accomplished several great feats, which makes them stand out more from other organizations. One example of such a feat is that they were one of the factors that in convinced the cities of San Diego and Del Mar to both cut carbon emissions in half by 2035.
As far as interviews go, I have only been able to interview one person, Danielle Boudreau, a Coastal Management Specialist at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. My teacher and some fellow students were able to help me find and contact this source. To prepare for this interview my fellow students and I wrote down and brainstormed a few questions. Before this interview I was nervous about what could go wrong, but the interview went better than I expected. I think this is because of the other students that were present at the interview. The most interesting part of the interview for me was when we discussed the future of climate change.
After that first interview, some of those same students were able to host another interview with Sandra Lebron, an education manager from ‘I Love a Clean San Diego’ that I was unable to attend. Thankfully, those students allowed me to analyze the interview and use it as a resource. Most of the information did not apply to my subtopic, but I still found some of the information from the interview was helpful and interesting.
After the interview with Danielle Boudreau I gained an interest in how climate change will specifically affect us. After I browsed the internet I was able to find several predictions related to climate change conducted by NASA. Some of these predictions were frankly shocking. One example is that the sea level is predicted to rise by one to four feet by 2100.
What I Learned
According to Danielle Boudreau, our society is going to need to adapt to the changes climate change will present us with. This is because at this point we have already done enough damage to the earth and these changes will come even if we somehow stopped emitting greenhouse gases completely (Dani Boudreau). Adapting to climate change does not mean we will be giving up though; We can still reverse the damage we have done, it will just take time and effort. During our interview we also compared how Mexico and America are currently dealing with climate change. What was interesting about this is that Mexico does not make climate change political (Dani Boudreau). In some places in America you would need to refer to climate change in a different manner to satisfy both the people that believe in climate change and the people that don’t. In Mexico, it seems as though you can freely refer to it as climate change and not be criticised (Dani Boudreau). She also talked about how climate change has started to become a topic that is sometimes difficult to talk about. I think this is because, for some people, climate change is not too important and they care more about what will happen tomorrow than what will happen in 100 years or the reality of climate change is too disturbing to talk about. Either way, we need to have an atmosphere in which it is comfortable to talk about climate change with other people so then more people will know how important this issue is.
Most of these changes will affect us during our lifetime and they will be even more devastating further into the future. Within the next century, the temperature will rise by 2.5 to 10 degrees fahrenheit (NASA). This can affect infants and the elderly, because they are the most vulnerable to heat. This will also cause a greater amount of thermal expansion and as a result, increase the sea level. The chances of a mega drought, which is a drought that lasts more than three decades, are around 60 percent if the production of greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise (NASA). If such a drought occurs most people will spend at least one third of their lives in the middle of this drought. The amount of arctic sea ice in september is declining at a rate of 13.2 percent each decade (NASA). These are all events that will likely happen and we will need to adapt to them no matter what. Hopefully, we will do what we can now to preserve our environment and decrease the severity of these effects.
During my analysis of the interview of Sandra Lebron, they talked about how there is still a large amount of people that still don’t believe in climate change even though there is such a large amount of scientific evidence that proves climate change is a result of humans releasing greenhouse gases. I think the main argument for the people that believe climate change is natural is that in the past, the earth has gone through many stages of cooling and warming, and they think this may be another phase that the earth is naturally going through. Sandra Lebron’s main goal is to change the attitudes of people and make them accountable for what they need to be doing. In my opinion carelessness is one of the the biggest factors that contributes to climate change and any other environmental issues and the only thing we can do to combat carelessness is educate people on what they can do or what will happen if they continue to be careless. Sandra Lebron also said that she thinks San Diego has a strong political community that is pro environmental issues, which is a statement I can agree with. San Diego seems to pay a lot of attention to environmental organizations and their causes so much, that San Diego is committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2035.
I truly believe that organizations are the best way we can prevent the future effects of climate change. This is because I think these organizations do a great job of representing the opinions of the public. One of these organizations is the ‘Environmental Health Coalition’. This organization was founded in 1980 and during the past 37 years they have expanded their efforts to focus on climate justice, healthy kids, border environmental justice, leadership development, voter empowerment and toxic-free neighborhoods (Environmental Health Coalition). They even have a more specific sub-movement for lead free candy, which is an interesting topic to focus on because I don’t think I have seen any other organization advocate for such a topic. What I like the most about this organization is that they have done work in both the San Diego and Tijuana region, since most of the environmental organizations that I know of, work in San Diego (Environmental Health Coalition). Different communities will have different levels of pollution and it is common that poorer communities will have higher levels of pollution. Children in EHC communities are exposed to higher levels of air pollution compared to children in San Diego communities(Environmental Health Coalition). It saddens me that some children are exposed to such harsh environments, especially considering the fact that some of those children don’t have fully developed immune and nervous systems.
Another organization that I have researched is the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, which mainly focuses on the preservation of the Tijuana River Estuary through research and education. The reason this organization is related to climate change is that climate change will affect the long-term ecological viability of the Tijuana river estuary and many other natural ecosystems (TRNERR). Coastal wetlands fulfill many different ecological roles. They act as a filter for water that is coming from the land to the sea and from the sea to the land (TRNERR). Coastal Wetlands are also the home to three endangered bird species such as the light footed clapper rail (TRNERR). In the past, California has lost 90 percent of its coastal wetlands, there has been a significant effect on the sustainability of all these factors (TRNERR). Halibut come to coastal wetlands to grow up, and since halibut have less places where they can grow up, which will affect commercial fisheries, there will be less habitats for certain species to live, and more pollutants will directly go to the ocean (TRNERR).
There is also the ‘Climate Action Campaign’ which was founded in 2015 as an organization that promotes green energy, transportation, increased tree coverage, decreasing waste production, and social equity (Climate Action Campaign). Personally, I think social equity should be considered more in the environmental field, because there are some people think that clean environments will be distributed evenly. This may not be the case, there will be some poorer communities that will be exposed to more greenhouse gas emissions than the other communities. My hope is that clean communities do not become a commodity for only the wealthy. When it comes to decreasing your carbon footprint, there is no better advice than riding a bike, walking, or using public transit. Currently, five percent of San Diego’s urban residents use transit, 4.2 percent walk, and 1.9 percent ride their bikes(Climate Action Campaign). The vision of the Climate Action Campaign is to create a transportation system in which 25 percent use public transit, seven percent walk, and 18 percent ride their bikes by 2035 (Climate Action Campaign). Trees are extremely beneficial to both our communities and the environment, and yet San Diego’s tree coverage is between four and seven percent. Increasing the tree coverage in urban areas can provide clean air and cool surrounding areas, which will reduce the need for air conditioners which cost a lot of money and use a large amount of electricity. Trees can also filter stormwater and reduce noise by seven decibels per every 100 feet of forest (Climate Action Campaign).
Currently, we are in a situation where climate change is starting to become a scary topic as we learn more about the reality of our situation. The truth is that our situation will get worse before it gets better, and this process will take time, possibly long enough that we will not be alive to experience the reversed effects of climate change. This does not mean we should give up, we can adapt to climate change and still make our lives just as enjoyable, even if there may be some differences. Though we are definitely making progress, whether it is through the organizations that have been founded, the laws that have been passed or the movements that have been started.
Reflection
Now that I have looked back at all of the events and assignments that have happened since the beginning of this semester, I have learned many things about climate change and the organizations that are combating it. At the beginning of this project, I had several topics that I was interested in such as Drug Trafficking, Homelessness, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the end, I decided to research climate change because it is a topic that I have always been interested in, but I never got the opportunity to participate in a full project about it. Before this project started I knew a reasonable amount of information related to climate change, since I have done a few smaller projects related to this topic in the past. Learning about the different organizations that are responsible for combating climate change has really shown me how much progress we have made in fighting climate change on a local, and social level. Doing the interview with Dani was a great experience because I personally don’t find myself to be the best at conducting interviews to begin with and I was able to greatly improve my ability to conduct a interview. That interview also opened up several different paths of interest for me to take and motivated me to do more research on the exact statistics related to the future of climate change. This information changed the direction of my research so that I focused more on the future of climate change during that period of time. The only thing I regret about my research is that I wish I conducted more interviews to directly get the information I wanted with a more human response.
My Tijuana partner did not really influence my research or the design for my papel picado. This is because me and my partner did not talk much about my topic, it was only mentioned briefly and then was never mentioned again. Unfortunately, me and my partner from IMAN did not talk as much as some of the other partnerships, due to some technical difficulties, but I think we were able to develop an understanding of each other.
For my papel picado, I cut out the silhouettes of the skylines of Tijuana and San Diego inside two heads that are separated by a wall in the center of the image. On the Tijuana side of the papel picado the text reads,“Cambio climático es una problema en ambos lados” is positioned above the head on the tijuana side and the text “Climate change is a problem on both sides” is positioned above the head on the San Diego side. Though, climate change is a problem for the whole world, not just on either sides of the border, I centered the main focus of my papel picado around climate change in these areas because I mainly focused my research on both sides of the Mexican/American border.
On Wednesday, December 6, 2017 I was finally able to meet my Tijuana partner in person, which was amazing to finally meet him after only communicating through Skype. In this time we were able to learn more about each other and what has happened since the last time we communicated. I think one highlight for that day was when we went to the local ice skating rink, which was fun even though I fell a few times.
International friendship seems like a type of relationship that is difficult to sustain especially when it is not in person, but there are moments where it does work and long-lasting friendships can become a result from it. I just wonder exactly how sustainable international friendship are compared to local friendships or if there are any statistics that contradict my claim. That day was an interesting day, since I am not the most social person, me and my partner did not interact as much as we should have, but when we did communicate we were both happy to be talking to each other. I was also able to learn more about the other group members that my partner was with. That was interesting since I was not able to hear much about them during the Skype calls. I would want to do another project like this one again, not because of the many things I have learned, but the experiences that have been created as a result of this project.
Works Cited
What Communities are Doing About the Future of Climate Change in San Diego and Tijuana
By: Aidan Parral
Research Introduction
During the past few years climate change has become an increasingly large problem for everyone and ignoring this will not decrease its severity. For this project I have been focusing on climate change and, what Tijuana and San Diego are currently doing to combat this problem. I have chosen this as my research topic because climate change is a large problem that is often overlooked in our current political environment and is progressively becoming a bigger problem over time. In addition, we should focus more on decreasing factors that support climate change such as greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation, otherwise there will be severe consequences in the future that may threaten our way of life.
For my final product I have been assisting a group in creating a small film reel for exhibition. This film reel will show various moments and interactions students had with their IMAN partners which range from awkward technical difficulties, to discussions that are related to a students research topic. I have been contributing by pulling out certain clips that students have requested from each recording of the conversations. I have also been experimenting in Garage Band to see if I can create a tune that our group can use for the film.
I have learned about several organizations that focus on combating environmental issues such as ‘I Love a Clean San Diego’ or ‘The Environmental Health Coalition’. Most of these organizations work in the San Diego region, but there are others that work in the Tijuana region such as ‘The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve’. I have also interviewed someone from this organization that specializes in this topic. This was extremely helpful and provided me with a lot of information about environmental topics such as greenhouse gas emissions and the future of climate change.
I would have liked to learn more about statistics related to this topic, which is very helpful information when trying to prove a point and simply interests me. I also wanted to see examples of how some people are innovating to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I believe that creative people can be encouraged to innovate and find a way to decrease greenhouse gas emissions in their own way. Finally, I would have also liked to know more about how San Diego and Tijuana are expanding their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions on a larger scale. I want to know more about the logistics behind their efforts.
I don’t interview often but, I believe it will be required to answer some of the questions that I have. Thankfully, me and a few other students were able to communicate with a researcher from the ‘Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve’. I think it would have been helpful to interview someone that may not specialize in environmental studies, but is aware that these issues exist. I hoped I could have a discussion with my partner in Tijuana and see if he can offer his opinion on this topic, but when I mentioned the topic to my partner, the conversation did not go very far.
Climate change is a huge problem that we can solve, but not if we are unable to work together. We have several examples of our efforts to stop this issue from becoming an even larger problem, but I think we can do more. We need to do what we can now so then future generations can appreciate the earth we stand on today.
Research Process
As we did our early investigations while reading Into The Beautiful North, by Luis Alberto Urrea, I explored a few topics which include: the drug trade, poverty and homelessness in Mexico, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The drug trade, in my opinion, was the most interesting topic I researched because of the intense and shocking details that I discovered while researching. Ultimately, I decided to not drive deeper into any of the three topics and instead focus on environmental issues.
For my method of research I simply browsed through the internet. If I found something that interested me, I would dive deeper and see if the source is worth holding my interest. Some examples of these sources include: The Environment Health Coalition, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Climate Action Campaign. I would also get recommendations from fellow students or my teacher.
While looking through the Internet, I was able to find a few organizations that relate to my topic of interest. One of those organizations was the Climate Action Campaign, which started in 2015, and whose goal is to stop climate change through policy action. The Climate Action Campaign is a small organization that has accomplished several great feats, which makes them stand out more from other organizations. One example of such a feat is that they were one of the factors that in convinced the cities of San Diego and Del Mar to both cut carbon emissions in half by 2035.
As far as interviews go, I have only been able to interview one person, Danielle Boudreau, a Coastal Management Specialist at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. My teacher and some fellow students were able to help me find and contact this source. To prepare for this interview my fellow students and I wrote down and brainstormed a few questions. Before this interview I was nervous about what could go wrong, but the interview went better than I expected. I think this is because of the other students that were present at the interview. The most interesting part of the interview for me was when we discussed the future of climate change.
After that first interview, some of those same students were able to host another interview with Sandra Lebron, an education manager from ‘I Love a Clean San Diego’ that I was unable to attend. Thankfully, those students allowed me to analyze the interview and use it as a resource. Most of the information did not apply to my subtopic, but I still found some of the information from the interview was helpful and interesting.
After the interview with Danielle Boudreau I gained an interest in how climate change will specifically affect us. After I browsed the internet I was able to find several predictions related to climate change conducted by NASA. Some of these predictions were frankly shocking. One example is that the sea level is predicted to rise by one to four feet by 2100.
What I Learned
According to Danielle Boudreau, our society is going to need to adapt to the changes climate change will present us with. This is because at this point we have already done enough damage to the earth and these changes will come even if we somehow stopped emitting greenhouse gases completely (Dani Boudreau). Adapting to climate change does not mean we will be giving up though; We can still reverse the damage we have done, it will just take time and effort. During our interview we also compared how Mexico and America are currently dealing with climate change. What was interesting about this is that Mexico does not make climate change political (Dani Boudreau). In some places in America you would need to refer to climate change in a different manner to satisfy both the people that believe in climate change and the people that don’t. In Mexico, it seems as though you can freely refer to it as climate change and not be criticised (Dani Boudreau). She also talked about how climate change has started to become a topic that is sometimes difficult to talk about. I think this is because, for some people, climate change is not too important and they care more about what will happen tomorrow than what will happen in 100 years or the reality of climate change is too disturbing to talk about. Either way, we need to have an atmosphere in which it is comfortable to talk about climate change with other people so then more people will know how important this issue is.
Most of these changes will affect us during our lifetime and they will be even more devastating further into the future. Within the next century, the temperature will rise by 2.5 to 10 degrees fahrenheit (NASA). This can affect infants and the elderly, because they are the most vulnerable to heat. This will also cause a greater amount of thermal expansion and as a result, increase the sea level. The chances of a mega drought, which is a drought that lasts more than three decades, are around 60 percent if the production of greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise (NASA). If such a drought occurs most people will spend at least one third of their lives in the middle of this drought. The amount of arctic sea ice in september is declining at a rate of 13.2 percent each decade (NASA). These are all events that will likely happen and we will need to adapt to them no matter what. Hopefully, we will do what we can now to preserve our environment and decrease the severity of these effects.
During my analysis of the interview of Sandra Lebron, they talked about how there is still a large amount of people that still don’t believe in climate change even though there is such a large amount of scientific evidence that proves climate change is a result of humans releasing greenhouse gases. I think the main argument for the people that believe climate change is natural is that in the past, the earth has gone through many stages of cooling and warming, and they think this may be another phase that the earth is naturally going through. Sandra Lebron’s main goal is to change the attitudes of people and make them accountable for what they need to be doing. In my opinion carelessness is one of the the biggest factors that contributes to climate change and any other environmental issues and the only thing we can do to combat carelessness is educate people on what they can do or what will happen if they continue to be careless. Sandra Lebron also said that she thinks San Diego has a strong political community that is pro environmental issues, which is a statement I can agree with. San Diego seems to pay a lot of attention to environmental organizations and their causes so much, that San Diego is committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2035.
I truly believe that organizations are the best way we can prevent the future effects of climate change. This is because I think these organizations do a great job of representing the opinions of the public. One of these organizations is the ‘Environmental Health Coalition’. This organization was founded in 1980 and during the past 37 years they have expanded their efforts to focus on climate justice, healthy kids, border environmental justice, leadership development, voter empowerment and toxic-free neighborhoods (Environmental Health Coalition). They even have a more specific sub-movement for lead free candy, which is an interesting topic to focus on because I don’t think I have seen any other organization advocate for such a topic. What I like the most about this organization is that they have done work in both the San Diego and Tijuana region, since most of the environmental organizations that I know of, work in San Diego (Environmental Health Coalition). Different communities will have different levels of pollution and it is common that poorer communities will have higher levels of pollution. Children in EHC communities are exposed to higher levels of air pollution compared to children in San Diego communities(Environmental Health Coalition). It saddens me that some children are exposed to such harsh environments, especially considering the fact that some of those children don’t have fully developed immune and nervous systems.
Another organization that I have researched is the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, which mainly focuses on the preservation of the Tijuana River Estuary through research and education. The reason this organization is related to climate change is that climate change will affect the long-term ecological viability of the Tijuana river estuary and many other natural ecosystems (TRNERR). Coastal wetlands fulfill many different ecological roles. They act as a filter for water that is coming from the land to the sea and from the sea to the land (TRNERR). Coastal Wetlands are also the home to three endangered bird species such as the light footed clapper rail (TRNERR). In the past, California has lost 90 percent of its coastal wetlands, there has been a significant effect on the sustainability of all these factors (TRNERR). Halibut come to coastal wetlands to grow up, and since halibut have less places where they can grow up, which will affect commercial fisheries, there will be less habitats for certain species to live, and more pollutants will directly go to the ocean (TRNERR).
There is also the ‘Climate Action Campaign’ which was founded in 2015 as an organization that promotes green energy, transportation, increased tree coverage, decreasing waste production, and social equity (Climate Action Campaign). Personally, I think social equity should be considered more in the environmental field, because there are some people think that clean environments will be distributed evenly. This may not be the case, there will be some poorer communities that will be exposed to more greenhouse gas emissions than the other communities. My hope is that clean communities do not become a commodity for only the wealthy. When it comes to decreasing your carbon footprint, there is no better advice than riding a bike, walking, or using public transit. Currently, five percent of San Diego’s urban residents use transit, 4.2 percent walk, and 1.9 percent ride their bikes(Climate Action Campaign). The vision of the Climate Action Campaign is to create a transportation system in which 25 percent use public transit, seven percent walk, and 18 percent ride their bikes by 2035 (Climate Action Campaign). Trees are extremely beneficial to both our communities and the environment, and yet San Diego’s tree coverage is between four and seven percent. Increasing the tree coverage in urban areas can provide clean air and cool surrounding areas, which will reduce the need for air conditioners which cost a lot of money and use a large amount of electricity. Trees can also filter stormwater and reduce noise by seven decibels per every 100 feet of forest (Climate Action Campaign).
Currently, we are in a situation where climate change is starting to become a scary topic as we learn more about the reality of our situation. The truth is that our situation will get worse before it gets better, and this process will take time, possibly long enough that we will not be alive to experience the reversed effects of climate change. This does not mean we should give up, we can adapt to climate change and still make our lives just as enjoyable, even if there may be some differences. Though we are definitely making progress, whether it is through the organizations that have been founded, the laws that have been passed or the movements that have been started.
Reflection
Now that I have looked back at all of the events and assignments that have happened since the beginning of this semester, I have learned many things about climate change and the organizations that are combating it. At the beginning of this project, I had several topics that I was interested in such as Drug Trafficking, Homelessness, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the end, I decided to research climate change because it is a topic that I have always been interested in, but I never got the opportunity to participate in a full project about it. Before this project started I knew a reasonable amount of information related to climate change, since I have done a few smaller projects related to this topic in the past. Learning about the different organizations that are responsible for combating climate change has really shown me how much progress we have made in fighting climate change on a local, and social level. Doing the interview with Dani was a great experience because I personally don’t find myself to be the best at conducting interviews to begin with and I was able to greatly improve my ability to conduct a interview. That interview also opened up several different paths of interest for me to take and motivated me to do more research on the exact statistics related to the future of climate change. This information changed the direction of my research so that I focused more on the future of climate change during that period of time. The only thing I regret about my research is that I wish I conducted more interviews to directly get the information I wanted with a more human response.
My Tijuana partner did not really influence my research or the design for my papel picado. This is because me and my partner did not talk much about my topic, it was only mentioned briefly and then was never mentioned again. Unfortunately, me and my partner from IMAN did not talk as much as some of the other partnerships, due to some technical difficulties, but I think we were able to develop an understanding of each other.
For my papel picado, I cut out the silhouettes of the skylines of Tijuana and San Diego inside two heads that are separated by a wall in the center of the image. On the Tijuana side of the papel picado the text reads,“Cambio climático es una problema en ambos lados” is positioned above the head on the tijuana side and the text “Climate change is a problem on both sides” is positioned above the head on the San Diego side. Though, climate change is a problem for the whole world, not just on either sides of the border, I centered the main focus of my papel picado around climate change in these areas because I mainly focused my research on both sides of the Mexican/American border.
On Wednesday, December 6, 2017 I was finally able to meet my Tijuana partner in person, which was amazing to finally meet him after only communicating through Skype. In this time we were able to learn more about each other and what has happened since the last time we communicated. I think one highlight for that day was when we went to the local ice skating rink, which was fun even though I fell a few times.
International friendship seems like a type of relationship that is difficult to sustain especially when it is not in person, but there are moments where it does work and long-lasting friendships can become a result from it. I just wonder exactly how sustainable international friendship are compared to local friendships or if there are any statistics that contradict my claim. That day was an interesting day, since I am not the most social person, me and my partner did not interact as much as we should have, but when we did communicate we were both happy to be talking to each other. I was also able to learn more about the other group members that my partner was with. That was interesting since I was not able to hear much about them during the Skype calls. I would want to do another project like this one again, not because of the many things I have learned, but the experiences that have been created as a result of this project.
Works Cited
- “Climate Action Campaign.” Climate Action Campaign, www.climateactioncampaign.org/.
- Dani Boudreau, et al. “Interview of Dani Boudreau.”
- “Global Climate Change: Effects.” NASA, NASA, 3 Aug. 2017, climate.nasa.gov/effects/.
- “Home.” Environmental Health Coalition, www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/.
- Sandra Lebron, et al. “Interview of Sandra Lebron.”
- “Tijuana Estuary : TRNERR.” Tijuana Estuary TRNERR, trnerr.org/.