English 8 Section 2

Date: February 19, 2021

Dear Editors,

I read the opinion piece called “Is Our Privilege Stopping Us From Fighting Climate Change?” by Isabelle Vergnaud.  I agree with how privilege makes a significant difference in helping the environmental crisis. Although we don’t experience it with our own eyes, we have the resources to help, so we should.

Furthermore, I believe that the writers’ opinion is evident in this opinion piece. She points various times how we can all make a difference because she has become aware of what was going on worldwide regarding environmental issues. I already think that we should all, especially the people in the Columbus school, try to help in what we can. Although I already agree with the person who wrote this, it made me reflect, and t put myself to think of how lucky I am to have a good education and participate in helping with these issues. Also,  this opinion piece made me realize how often we don’t think about what is going on in the world because we are not affected by it. Overall, the article was not repetitive because although she did say the main point of the opinion piece various times, it was different each time and was connected to other things such as social media or education.

In this article, I learned that privilege is a huge factor in helping solve environmental issues and who experiences it first hand. Also, I realized that the people who had a higher education have a higher chance of learning about ecological awareness and can act on it. This is something I didn’t know before. Also, I realized that Social media could help raise environmental awareness as it is a vast platform where millions of people have access to it and lots of resources to learn and spread the word. Adding to this, I realized that the main reason why people aren’t aware of the global issues regarding the environment is that there are people who don’t have education or the resources to help but want to, while many of the people who can help don’t realize it because the barrier of privilege protects them. I would have loved to see some things in the article were more statistics about the environmental problems in the world to make the opinion piece more powerful. This article was handy, and I like it because it addresses essential topics everyone should read and be aware of. I also appreciated that the big message that the opinion piece focused on was helping and being more aware of the environment. 

                                                                                               Sincerely,

                                                                                                          Isabel Mejia