Climate change is a drastic situation that will effect the whole world profoundly, but this class honed in on one place that is at risk of losing its culture, environment, home, and the plants and animals that they rely on, the arctic. The arctic is an horribly under discussed region in the context of climate change for a number of reasons one being that the ice is responsible for reflecting the suns rays thus reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the earth and if it is depleted there will be a run away effect. Another reason of political significance especially as of late is that there are 8 countries which have territory in the arctic and all but 1 of them are in NATO and the one that isn't just so happens to be the reason for NATO's creation in the first place. As the polar ice melts there will be more political goings on in the arctic region and Russia has already proved it has little respect when it comes to the geopolitical landscape of claiming territory.

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While these issues could stem from climate change there are also equally devastating local consequences. The arctic region is rich with the culture of native peoples who have resided in the arctic circle since time immemorial and become increasingly at risk as the climate changes. Many of their customs and cultural practices rely heavily on the ice itself or the animals that live in the region which are going extinct as a result of climate change. This class really opened up my mind to the local ramifications of climate change. I have always been aware that the world is at a crossroads, but there are some communities of people that don't have the expansive networks of wealthy countries and may have their cultures at risk of disappearing due to the incursion that we brought upon them.

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This class further inspired me to work in climate science in some capacity with my final paper being about political/economic policies that have been put into place in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In fact I used some of the information that I gathered in my research during an internship that I had in the summer of 2022 where I researched the carbon economy. In this paper I discussed a subject known as cap-and-trade systems where there is a limit set by a governing body to the amount companies can pollute and once they reach that limit they can purchase more credits to emit more. The flip side of this is if a company does not use their whole allotment of credits they can sell them to the highest bidder thus incentivizing companies economically to produce fewer greenhouse gasses which is exactly what we need.