1st Place, Environmental, Health or Science
2023-24, Division 1, News Writing
By Satvika Ramanathan
The Emery
Ann Arbor Huron HS
When people think about being sustainable, that oftentimes comes with the thought of a reduced quality of life. They think that they’ll have to give things up and be unsatisfied with what they have. But that’s not actually the case.
“I think there’s a lot of technology, there is a lot of smart innovation happening to have a better world that is removed from fossil gas and fossil fuels,” City of Ann Arbor Community Resilience Specialist Bryce Frohlich said.
“Climate change is obviously a global problem. We’re situated in a region where climate impacts overall are minimal, but that doesn’t mean that we still don’t have to prepare for possible future projections of a changing climate. There are a lot of things that people can do to make themselves more resilient.”
Frohlich works for the Ann Arbor Office of Sustainability and Innovations. The Office of Sustainability and Innovations has adopted a seven-part plan to get community wide carbon neutrality by 2030, which means releasing and removing the same amount of carbon dioxide into and from the atmosphere.
The seven strategies that A2Zero has are to use fully renewable energy for the electric grid, switch all appliances to electric, improve energy efficiency in places across the city, reduce the number of miles traveled by at least 50 percent, change the way we use and dispose of materials, enhance resilience of the people and anything else under an other category. Frohlich does resilience work for the city which focuses mainly on adaptation and neighborhood programs. A lot of that is thinking about how to develop programs that help the community adapt to changing climates and how to build more community and social cohesion to respond to climate change.
“I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for about four and a half years,” Frohlich said. “And even in my short time here, I have seen the frequency of power outages and severe events. And they’re coming more frequently. They’re coming more extremely.”
According to the GLISA, the Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Partnership team, the number of days a year where there is more than 1 inch of precipitation has increased by about three days in Ann Arbor between 1951 and 2022. The annual precipitation in Ann Arbor has also increased by 46 percent between 1951 and 2022. Those numbers aren’t small, and they are continuing to grow. The community resilience strategy is in place to get the people living in Ann Arbor to be more able to deal with the extreme climate impacts that are becoming more and more common like power outages, extreme heat, and extreme cold.
There are many ways that people can educate themselves and prepare for future climate struggles, whether that’s learning about different assets the city has, coming up with a household emergency plan, talking with their family about what to do if the power goes out, or even weatherizing their home if it’s financially possible. But there are also ways to combat climate change at a community level.
“What climate and sustainability really means for people in Ann Arbor is that it really is a community wide effort,” Frohlich said. “It has to be a community wide effort to be able to achieve community wide carbon neutrality.”
For individual people, that might seem like a far-away goal.
“For the average person, it’s not just about greenhouse gas reductions or how we are going to slow down or stop the warming of our planet,” he said. “Really what I think sustainability and A2Zero can mean is the possibility to rethink everything in our society, on how we commute, how we interact with each other, where we get our foods from, our purchasing habits and really think about how we can ingrain sustainability into our everyday lives.”
Climatologist with GLISA Kim Channell says that the first step to responding to, adapting to, and mitigating climate change is to be informed on its impacts, especially locally.
“We hear all these global-scale terms used really often,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean anything to a lot of people who are trying to think about what are the actual impacts to me and my city, my neighborhood, my community. Being informed of these local trends is really that first step to moving forward with individual responsibility and collective responsibility at the city level, the county level, the state level and the national level.”
Frohlich agrees.
“Pay attention to local funding and state initiatives,” Frohlich said. “Pay attention not just to the A2Zero plan, but also the Michigan healthy climate goals. Even though we do need a lot of federal action, a lot of impact can happen by putting people in the right local positions to be able to make those changes. Getting out and voting and getting public support behind these options are some of the biggest things that we can do to make those larger chunks of progress.”
He believes that when people work together the results can be large.
“Mitigation at the individual level can seem like a hard thing to do,” Frohlich said. “There is a lot that an individual can do. Can one person’s actions alone change the course of the climate crisis? No. But together collectively, it can make an impact.”
Frohlich says that one of the biggest ways to make a difference is to think about transportation. If it’s affordable and accessible, he encourages people to take action and ride the bus, carpool with a friend, or even bike somewhere.
“If you’re a person who wants to go see a friend who lives in a place where you may have to take carbon intensive transit, I don’t think you should burden yourself on deciding, ‘Oh, I’m not going to take this flight or go to this event’ and punish yourself because you’re scared of the emissions,” he said. “Those impacts will not change the course of the climate crisis. But making those choices in your everyday life really can stack up.”
Frohlich believes that incorporating sustainability into every-day life is an act of love towards the community and world.
“I think one of the reasons why sustainability and the climate crisis present such a challenge, but an opportunity within itself, is because as a society overall, the way that we can tackle sustainability issues, comes with a lot of care,” he said. “Folks who live on frontline populations or are lower income residents are going to be ones who feel the brunt of these climate impacts the most, and we have a real opportunity to address those inequitable situations and make sure that those who are going to be most affected by the climate crisis are safe and encouraged and supported through all that. Sustainability not just presents us a chance to care for each other, but for the natural world and to span beyond that.”
NW-17. Environmental, Health or Science
This story will focus on an environmental, health or science topic. It can be a straight news story or an investigative piece.
Judging Criteria
- Topic relevant to the school or students and covers health, science or environmental story that is informative
- Sharp, attention-getting lead grabs reader and arouses curiosity
- Shows thorough reporting skills through research and interviewing
- Effective use of facts/quotes from both primary and secondary sources
- Balanced, fair and sensitive presentation
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar; use of third person