SUNY New Paltz students claim “the debate is clearly over”
NEW PALTZ – As the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy is marked, students from the State University of New York in New Paltz, environmental organizations and community members rallied Saturday to fight climate change.
They held up signs and marched from the SUNY New Paltz campus to the state Department of Environmental Conservation regional office nearby.
The group heard from several speakers including students and faculty.
Nicholas Leone, a Long Island resident and junior at the college, said the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy inspired him to join the fight against climate change.
“I experienced Hurricane Sandy firsthand,” Leone said. “Besides losing power, which was minuscule compared to what everyone else lost, I witnessed my friends losing their homes. I felt like I had no choice but to get involved, because if you’re apathetic, you’re on the side of the oppressor. These so-called ‘natural disasters’ don’t seem natural anymore.”
Since Superstorm Sandy five years ago, the Atlantic and Gulf have been ravaged by several hurricanes, namely the ones that hit the U.S. this year.
Matthew Nash, a student at SUNY New Paltz who organized this event and is currently interning for the New York Public Interest Research Group, released a statement on how the issue of climate change is becoming increasingly obvious.
“More Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall than ever this year,” Nash said. “The impact of the climate changing is becoming more apparent, and the time to take action is now.”
Brian Obach, a sociology professor and director of Environmental Studies at SUNY New Paltz, concurred and placed blame on the Trump administration.
“It almost seems absurd that we have to come together to demand that this issue be addressed,” Obach said. “The science is in; the debate is clearly over now. We have seen what is happening, yet our leaders deny that it is happening.”
State leaders appear to be taking action when the federal government is not. Assemblyman Kevin Cahill has introduced bills geared towards alleviating the effects of climate change in New York, which his Legislative Director and Counsel Laurie Wheelock noted.
“In New York State, we should be proud of everything we are trying to do, especially with everything going on in the federal level,” Wheelock said. “Assemblyman Cahill used to be the chair of the energy committee and he continues to work hard on environmental legislation.”
Around the world, people are suffering from the same effects of climate change as those in New York. Aumma Begum, a SUNY New Paltz student from Bangladesh, expressed her concerns over how her home country will subsist amidst the heavy rainfall it receives each year.
“I am really traumatized of its future because things are worse now than it was when I was back home,” Begum said in a news release. “It floods many times every year now and people often lose their crops due to it. We have all the proof that we need to say that this is today’s issue and something must be done.”
