Page 13 - HGS Suburb News 152 - Winter 2022

Thinking global, acting local

Climate change is very concerning for anyone living in the 21st century
and therefore it is essential to educate ourselves and others of its drastic
effects if strict measures are not enforced. The Henrietta
Barnett School has long advocated eco-friendly principles,
whether through assemblies or fundraisers and the pupils are
aware of environmental issues. Often, in subjects like Geography,
we debate matters such as the relevance of COP26 and the impact of
social media on keeping the environment a point of discussion. Although we are
lucky to be surrounded by greenery in a beautiful place like the Suburb, we need to know
what the world faces in terms of climate change effects and being educated is the first step to
being able to take action against events like global warming.
Among recent initiatives to preserve the environment, we held a large bake sale inviting every member
of the school to participate. The money raised was used to buy a 7 acre plot of land in the rainforest.
Thus, we were able to help preserve the land, prevent the destruction and burning of trees and the
ecosystem which depend on them. The bake sale made people realise the positive impact we can
have, and we would definitely urge people to donate money to organisations such as World Land Trust
to protect rainforest land.
Similarly, our schoolʼs music department adopted their own animal, an endangered elephant.
Protecting the animals is also a crucial step in protecting the environment and as a whole school we
aim to continue to maintain biodiversity along with preserving the environment.
A more basic but vital step we should all take is being greener in our daily lives, for example, when
packing lunch or buying items of food and drink. Our school canteen has been using biodegradable
cutlery and packaging for a few years. This ensures that when the waste is disposed of it will not be Hampstead Heath Extension Woods
(Photo: Emma Howard)
damaging to the environment and will safely be decomposed by microorganisms. Pupils are also
encouraged to use their own lunch boxes when buying canteen food, with a reduction on the price of
the meal as an incentive. People are also encouraged to use the metal cutlery provided in the canteen, Environment and well-being
which can be returned and reused, reducing the need even for recycling.
Many of us have a profound appreciation for the environment and
HBS has been taking positive steps towards protecting the environment in many different ways from
educating pupils about the impacts of their actions to utilising more eco-friendly equipment as well as the natural world around us. Perhaps this has become more
striking over the last few years particularly, during the Covid-19
raising money for the cause. These are only some of the things that the school does but they are
crucial to create a better environment. Climate change is a very serious threat and it is important that lockdown when each of us was permitted just one stroll in the open
air per day.
people learn about it from a young age so they can take the right steps be well informed about this
imminent issue. This renewed appreciation, alongside the climate crisis, has placed
more focus on the benefits of being around nature. A 2019 study
BY SAANVI AKULA AND RIYA SHAH, HENRIETTA BARNETT SCHOOL
from the University of Exeter involving 20,000 people, showed that
participants who spent two hours in green spaces – local parks or
An appalling COPout natural environments – were substantially more likely to report
good health as well as psychological well-being. Furthermore,
current emerging research has suggested that as well as improving
Recently, a series of critical reports were published by the UN. Their message is clear: human short-term memory and reducing stress and anger, being amongst
driven climate change is likely to cause irreparable harm to the planet, with little hope of nature increases feelings of kindness and generosity. In a 2019
preventing it. Based on current trends of emission reduction, we are likely to increase global nationwide study, children growing up in lower levels of green
temperatures by 2.5 degrees Celsius. This is of grave concern, as the scientific community almost space in urban areas had up to a 55% higher risk of developing a
all agree that we need to keep to an increase of 1.5 degrees or reach a point of no return: psychiatric disorder independent from the effects of other known
unprecedented destruction to both the biosphere and human society. risk factors. Being outside and experiencing these environments is
More must be done. In a little over seven years, humanity must reduce its carbon dioxide emissions the most effective way to feel the impacts of being closer to nature,
by half, no easy feat when the UN environment agency stated that there is “no credible pathway” to but it has recently been suggested that even watching nature
reaching net zero emissions. All this during a time where despite record profits, many oil documentaries is good for our mental health.
companies pay little tax. There is an establishment of climate injustice both here and around the Although this can now be quantified with scientific evidence,
world, where if you are poorer, you are having a smaller environmental impact, but suffering most throughout history a love of nature has been apparent in many
of the consequences for the actions of the rich. Surely, it is the moral responsibility of each and societies and civilisations. An example of this is the romantic
every one of us to combat global warming. movement. It involved a rejection of previous artistic obsession
Most of the promises made in last yearʼs COP 26 in Glasgow have already been broken. If we are to with order and method and focused more on unified and individual
have any hope of surviving as a species, it is imperative that COP 27 engenders a keen sense of human experience, drawing inspiration from nature and the
urgency. Britain was reluctant to prioritise COP 27 citing “pressing domestic issues”, yet the cost of parallels it had with emotion and interweaving creativity and
living crisis is only exacerbated by our countryʼs unsustainable dependence on fossil fuels, whilst spontaneity. The movement began around 1780, just 20 years after
extreme weather events such as super-storms and floods are all too likely to take lives over the the beginning of the industrial revolution, which saw a mass
coming winter. migration to urban areas in search of jobs in manufacturing. Steam
engines, smog and coal were everywhere, and pollution was
Clearly, individual actions, while beneficial (not least for our local green spaces such as Big Wood noticeable in the water and the air. Romanticism could be seen as a
and Hampstead Heath), will not be enough to avert complete climate catastrophe. It is imperative return to nature, or rather a rejection of the intimidating and bleak
that we lobby our leaders to actively keep this crisis in the forefront of their minds and their modernisation of industry and machine. Nature was not only the
policies. In the words of Greta Thunberg, “Act as if your house is on fire, because it is.”
subject of paintings, nor simply an influence on writers – it became
The world is on fire. Will you step up and make a change? a means of metaphorical expression in itself. Romantic poets saw in
THOMAS YIANNIKOU, ARCHER ACADEMY the earth, its cycles, structures, deformities, and stark natural
contrasts, the suffering or pain that they felt and united the two.
This pain was partially inflicted by the unnatural factories which
sprung up all around them, evoking fear in poets that the sincerity
of life would be choked away, and their peace infringed on.
The housing crisis plaguing us at the moment, which has led to the
building of homes on any land available, may be a parallel to the
choking which the romantics felt. And so, we should make the
effort to utilise the many green spaces in our local area: Hampstead
Heath, Lyttleton Playing Fields, East Finchley Cemetery, Coldfall
Wood, and the Hampstead Heath Extension. Personally, during the
pandemic, I loved discovering the East End Road Cemetery and
taking walks through Coldfall Wood – I am sure that each of us has
different special places which we enjoy going to the most. Wherever
this place is, we are extremely privileged to have so many green
areas within such close proximity and would be foolish not to
venture to find the solace in our parks and ancient woods which
fascinated the romantics, and which can bring us calm in an angry,
confused and erratic modern world.
OSCAR GRAHAM, ARCHER ACADEMY
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