Climate Change: The Story of Water from Four Continents
McLean, VA
2021, Senior, Creative Writing
I am a traveler. Following my diplomat father from the age of seven, I have sought adventure all around the globe, making invaluable memories. Tracing back to where my memory can reach, my first destination was Copenhagen, Denmark: a place of absolute delight. The nature of Copenhagen—the vast expanse of green grass plains with specks of yellow påskelilje (daffodil), Furesø lake reflecting the blue skies with clouds, and pairs of white swans gracefully floating amid lush gul åkande (water lilies)—was always a comfort for me.
Perhaps this was the cause; with my early childhood always being exposed to the rich hue of green, I was startled by how the world could look when I moved to Even Yehuda, Israel. This small town was the exact opposite of Copenhagen in every single aspect. The scorching red desert surrounded the village, and streets were covered in yellow and dusty sand particles. While I adapted very quickly and enjoyed the rather drastic change in surroundings, I always craved to see nature full of life once again.
My wish was granted when my family visited the largest freshwater lake in the country, the Sea of Galilee. As the only drinking water source available in Israel, the teeming lake was always full of life and energy. St. Peter’s fish as big as my face greeted me by tickling my ankles with their glimmering silver scales, and in the early morning, a cast of small crabs crawled out from the bottom of the boulders. Clams in shades of white, gray, and brown were everywhere, and I was never tired of diving in the water to admire their beauty from sunrise to sunset. The lake seemed like it existed from the beginning of the world’s creation and will stay there eternally.
Two years later, my family revisited the Sea of Galilee before leaving Israel. Happy to see the place I loved so much one last time, I jumped out of the car with excitement. Immediately, my smile waned away and turned into a confused frown. What was once a pristine coastline had become a rocky, dried-up land. The shore was long gone. Once filled with crystal clear water that I enjoyed diving in, the lake was now scattered with lifeless clamshells and fishbones. While the drastic contrast between Denmark and Israel was based on regional differences, the change of the Sea of Galilee was clearly not the case. With a heavy heart, I headed to Seoul, South Korea, only to realize the severity of the issue.
The Han River, flowing through the center of the city, was far different from what I had expected. I imagined the river as a home to many organisms and as a safe place for people to find refuge. Rather, the borders of the river near the shore were covered in lime-green algae. The eerie tint of green, the same hue of a faded highlighter, was covering the surface of the once clear water, suffocating the life within it. A thick layer of bubbles was mixed with the algae, too, creating its gooey texture. I never thought that green could be so unsettling as it has always been my favorite color.
It turned out that the project the government had initiated, known as the Four Major Rivers Project, which intended to restore the main river streams in Korea, backfired due to insufficient planning and resulted in the stagnation of the river water. The increasing water temperature also played a role in creating such tragedy. Severe eutrophication where the water was severely polluted by algal blooming occurred, up to a point where the media called the river a “Green Tea Latte.” I was shocked but decided to think that as long as humans don’t directly interfere with nature in the first place, such unfortunate disasters won’t happen. It was only a few years later that I was proven wrong when I moved to Mclean, Virginia, finding that nature will always have its own way.
It was a rainy weekend. The sky was covered in ominous clumps of gray, and gusts roamed through the town with the horrid wailing of a heartbroken. To brighten up the mood, I turned on the T.V. and started quickly skimming through the channels. Soon after, flinching from a somewhat familiar scenery, I turned up the volume. “A historic Maryland city is under a state of emergency after a powerful flash flooding devastated its downtown.” The screen was showing Ellicott City, which I visited just weeks ago. The entire town was underwater: cars were washed away, streetlights floated through the fast current, and buildings were helplessly gasping for air.
I was stunned, as I still had the glass ornament bought from the souvenir shop Forget Me Not Factory pinned on the side of my backpack. What was more concerning was that Ellicott City went through the same destructive flooding two years ago and had just recently recovered from the damage. Since flooding was frequent, residents of Ellicott City assumed that they were unlucky with their homes impacted by unprecedentedly destructive flooding in 2016. With resilience, they rebuilt the city: reconstructing broken buildings, cleaning the flooded mess, bringing people back. It was only two years later for their loving, rebuilt, homes to be completely destroyed once again by another historic flooding. Was this another unlucky weekend for them? No. This was clearly not a simple coincidence.
In fact, none of these tragic events I saw—a lake massive enough to be called a “sea” drying up, a river used as people’s favorite resort being covered with algae, and two immense deluges consecutively destroying a city—can by any means be coincidences. The reason behind these global abnormalities is clear: climate change. Our world has already far surpassed the tolerance level of where nature can self-heal and is facing downhill for its “Sixth Extinction1” (Kolbert). Even though we might decide to bury our heads under the sand and try ignoring the current situation at stake, climate change will not be solved by itself; ironically, it needs intervention from the humans who caused this situation.
Growing up while seeing the detrimental impacts of climate change myself, I am concerned to continue on my traveling journey to my next given destination, Mozambique. Even though I can already see the devastating water crisis from the consecutive droughts impacting the country as a whole, I believe that things can change. Before the Sea of Galilee dries up completely, before the Han River is fully covered up in algae, and before the flooding of Ellicott City becomes recurring, actions must be taken. With effort, the travelers of the next generation will be able to seek the true beauty of the world.
Reflection
As an international student growing up in four continents while directly experiencing different types of climate disasters myself, it was only natural for me to become passionate about raising awareness of the current climate crises. When writing the essay, I was able to reflect and gather broken pieces of my memories and learned that they were all connected under the theme of climate change. Realizing this, I became beyond ecstatic since I believed that this could be my chance to share my experience about the severity of climate change with my readers. While most people do recognize that climate change is an ongoing issue, they seem to not realize that the problem is more serious and urgent than they think it is. During the process of creating my essay, I hoped that my viewers could clearly picture that climate change is a global crisis happening all around the world. We must realize that it is a shared goal among global citizens to take action to mitigate climate change, and actions must be done before it is too late.