Standing on the peak of a mountain looking at the Icelandic glacial valley below me, I felt a sense of peace - quite a striking difference from the usual hustle and bustle of being an engineering student. Everything I was thinking of melted away slowly and was replaced by the immediate sensations I felt as I sat down. The coarse grass beneath my fingertips, the pebbles dotting the clearing next to where I sat, the gentle gust of wind that reminded me how close I was to the Atlantic ocean, and the intensity of the clear, blue sky. I lay back on the slope of the mountain and looked around me. I was surrounded by like-minded people, laughing and talking quietly or sitting and taking in the view, taking photographs to share with their families, or napping peacefully.
While the reason I was on the mountain on the southern peninsula of Iceland was to learn about renewable energy with The GREEN Program (a short term study abroad program that furthers the UN's Sustainable Development Goals) I think I learned the most when not learning about power distribution and energy policy. The curriculum of the GREEN Program did help me, of course - I learned about some of the challenges faced today in renewable energy, and I got to see renewable power plants in action, plus learn about Icelandic history, culture, and environmental policy - but the wordless understanding I got from being to spend time in nature was more crucial to my development both as a scientist/engineer and as a person than I initially realized.
Even though I went into The GREEN Program last May super pumped about renewable energy and always ready to talk about wind turbines, I came out calmer and more mature, ready to channel all the energy and passion I have for renewable energy and sustainability into something tangible. Since coming back from the program, I've co-founded an environmental organization on campus (ETC: Environmental Technology and Collaboration), where I'm vice president, I had an internship with a conservation technology company and got to contribute to educational resources, a learning platform, and in-house engineering projects (not to mention I went to my first conference during my internship, in Cartagena, and got to practice my Spanish skills!) am participating in a clean tech mentorship program, staying involved with the GREEN program, and am organizing the first environmental hackathon in the state of Virginia, Earth Hacks.
Sometimes when I think about why I'm motivated to work towards solving problems created by climate change, I just stop myself and say that the answer is in the question - there are problems created by climate change. I think that the Earth, and life on it, human or nonhuman, intrinsically has value and does not need to be tied to humanity in order to be preserved. There's a lot to be said for just taking care of something that can never thank you, but has provided you with a space for life. At the same time, when I think about why humans do things, I'm stumped. Why do I care whether or not I made a new friend today when a hurricane is being made so much worse by manmade climate change? Why am I upset that I didn't get to go hiking like I thought I would? Why does it even matter in the face of global issues so large I can barely comprehend them, and how can everyone else think like me and be so absorbed in their own lives they can't look past anything and solve these problems?
It's easy for me as a scientist and as an engineer to explain why it's necessary to preserve our natural environment - implications range from food stability to public health and many more topics in between, not to mention that if we don't have a planet to live on nothing else really matters - but there's a type of wordless understanding that comes from being in the outdoors that it is your responsibility to protect it.
My grandfather told me that if you are lucky enough to be in a position where you are able to help somebody, you do. I parrot this quote constantly with a small modification - that should extend to the planet that you live on, too. As people who live on and study planet Earth, I think it's our responsibility to make sure that we understand the challenges our future faces so that we can work to create a more sustainable future.
