For a very long time, humanity has been warned about global warming and how if we don’t work to fix it. it could come back to bite us later on. As a result, many different organizations and clubs including Green School at Loy Norrix and Ardea at the Kalamazoo Nature Center try to spread awareness and make changes to reduce the impact humans have on the earth. 

According to the study Climate Change: Global Temperature, by Rebecca Lindsey and LuAnn Dahlman, “Earth’s temperature has risen by an average of 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1850, or about two degrees Fahrenheit in total. While this may sound insignificant, the rate of warming since 1982 is more than three times as fast: 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.”

Math teacher Blake Derhammer, who graduated from Florida Tech, is no stranger to the hurricanes in the southeast United States.

“I went through a couple hurricanes, but the biggest were Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Irma. Hurricane Ian was also a pretty big deal,” said Derhammer. “When there’s a hurricane, the entire state is glued to the weather map and everybody’s tracking it.”

Although Derhammer has experienced several hurricanes, he said that he’s never been scared for his life because of a hurricane. While in Florida, he would always receive warning from the local government before the hurricane hit.

“In places like Florida, they also are aware of these threats, so nowadays they keep these things in mind while building things,” Derhammer said, “so if you’re in a newer building, you should be safe.”

However, not everyone is impacted equally in these severe weather events, even though architecture and government warnings have significantly lessened the negative impacts of these occurrences. 

“Usually, the only people who live right on the coast are really rich people anyway, so they have lots of time and money to prepare themselves,” Derhammer said. “Because of this, usually poor people get hit way harder. For example there was one hurricane [Hurricane Dorian] that stopped over an island in the Bahamas for a whole day, and the Bahamas isn’t overly wealthy so, as you can imagine, that whole community was just completely destroyed.”

Unfortunately this is a common pattern in today’s society with many different impoverished islands getting devastated by weather, even though they contribute the least to CO2 emissions. A lot of times low-income communities’ infrastructure is not up to par with the newly built buildings, as a result they are much more susceptible to damage from hurricanes and other natural disasters. Often low-income communities don’t get the information needed in an emergency due to lack of technology. 

 “When I saw that, I volunteered to help send supplies because our school had a flight program,” Derhammer said of the program with cargo planes dropping supplies and food to affected areas.

Although Derhammer’s volunteering program didn’t get directly involved in going to the affected areas and helping victims of the hurricane, it still helped affected people get supplies and resources.

 “The government would provide supplies, and me and other volunteers would help load them up on big cargo planes headed to the affected areas,” Derhammer said. “There were a bunch of different non-profit organizations made up of volunteers that helped in different ways. For example I know the Red Cross had a lot of volunteers helping injured victims and saving people.”

There are many different ways to help hurricane victims and hurricane cleanup efforts. Multiple different non-profit organizations are looking for more volunteers. While you don’t get a salary, these organizations will often provide for lodging, food and transportation while you volunteer. Another good example right now is All Hands And Hearts is looking for more volunteers to help with Hurricane Relief now through March 28th. You can arrive any day, and there is no minimum commitment time.

 “I think that if they continue to form at this rate,” Derhammer said, “and at the power they’re forming, if something doesn’t change in the future, people will be in trouble.”