Virginia is the birthplace of our nation. Housing Jamestown island, the first English established settlement in the Americas. Virginia’s beauty and unique landscape, ranging from nearly subtropical to boreal forest, is not to be overlooked. From the the beaches along our east coast to farther west reaching the historic Appalachian mountains, Virginia is full of history, and that is even more a reason to protect our varied, exquisite landscape.

Much like the rest of the East Coast southern states, they started as agricultural states and have continued to be so today. Virginia itself was used as a tobacco colony in its early years as an American settlement. Though Virginia relies on the agricultural industry, the increasing loss of open land and habitats for commercial development and other industries has put a huge strain on Virginias environmental health. This habitat loss creates a series of issues for an ecosystem and the entire atmosphere of Virginia, slowly trickling down affecting not only the plants and animals losing their homes, but to humans as well.

Lafayette Highschool science teacher Mr. Hugh Beard, and his current teacher assistant Mr. Jourdan Peratsakis, both had insights and thoughts to share about our precious and in many ways endangered ecosystems.

Mr. Beard began an informal education of the environmental field as a young child exploring forests and national parks around him, and watching national geographic specials and “The wonderful World of Disney” nature shows. He later on moved to study at Virginia Tech in what was then known as the School of forestry, earning a degree in forestry, specializing in parks and recreation and forest management. Not always a teacher, he worked as a park ranger for eleven months before he began teaching. Born and raised in Virginia, Mr. Beard is highly familiar with the depths of beauty Virginia has to offer. His love for the range in landscapes and ecosystems Virginia holds–mountains, forests, beaches–is endless.

Mr. Peratsakis became quite environmentally conscious during his years in Highschool. He noticed the huge “throw away culture” America has developed, and started making efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as he could. Mr. Peratsakis took classes such as biology, geology, and ecotoxicology at the college of William and Mary. Later working with avian biologist, Professor Dan Cristol, on a research project regarding animals reaction to mercury in their water, due to the mercury levels in our local water systems. Mr. Peratsakis first job was working for the US Fish and wildlife service, working on biological opinion reports. Not a native Virginian, Mr. Peratsakis confesses that he overlooked Virginia’s beauty when he first came here, only later realizing the extreme biodiversity and the quality of our public lands such as our well preserved national parks.

In Mr. Beard’s opinion, much of the environmental injustice in Virginia stems from zoning. Zoning laws determine whether an area is residential, commercial, or mixed development, they also determine how large homes can be and how large the density can be in certain areas. He points out that these laws tend to protect wealthier neighborhoods, eventually leading to more development of upper class neighborhoods and displacing the poor. In turn, this pushes more affordable places towards industrial or commercial areas. While these poorer areas may not be overly exposed to toxins, they are subject to more traffic, which can lead to other concerns.

Mr. Peratsakis adds that there are big problems in the mountains of Virginia due to pipelines and fracking, displacing citizens and affecting water quality. And, as in urban areas, more often than not, wealthy neighborhoods are protected from these issues.

Both men weighed in on the Virginia Clean economy Act, which pledges to convert Virginia’s power grid to 100% clean energy by 2050, requiring Dominion Energy to be 100% carbon free by 2050 and Appalachian Energy to be 100% carbon free by 2045. Both Mr. Beard and Mr. Peratsakis support the act, and believe that it is a great start for Virginia. They agreed that any environmentally friendly legislation made is good. Mr. Beard, however, also mentioned he hopes the economy can continue to support the act.

Mr. Beard furthermore fully supports a deposit on plastic, pointing to Virginia representative Madison Marye, who has proposed a bill bottle law every year he resided in the Virginia senate, nearly 30 years, and was dismissed each time. Mr. Beard recalls that when he was younger everything was deposit, companies always took bottles back. There were many local bottling plants. However, over time the companies grew and it became more cost efficient for them to have s small amount of huge plants rather than many local plants. This caused the deposit system to disappear. Companies today are fighting bill bottle laws because they do not want to face the cost of implementing it, despite its environmental benefits. Mr. Peratsakis added that implementing a bill bottle law would be extremely political, and he isn’t sure it would get the support it needs.

Both stated they believe the greatest environmental threat in our state is the increase in sea levels due to climate change.

Virginia, being a coastal state, is in huge risk as sea levels rise. In the past century, Virginia has warmed about one degree, and sea levels are rising at an average of 2 inches every 10 years. Increasing sea levels cause a variety of issues such as gradual loss of land, erosion of beaches, and coastal flooding. Rising sea levels can also increase salinity levels in aquifers and estuaries, creating issues for marine animals and eventually affecting our drinking water.

Virginia relies on agriculture and wildlife, more particular marine wildlife, for our economy. Both Mr. Beard and Mr. Peratsakis worried for the individuals that could potentially lose their homes or businesses due to the rising sea levels and flooding. It is a hard issue to combat. Money is a huge factor; changes require funding, which will be coming out of taxpayers pockets. Both mentioned sea walls as a possible way to prevent flooding and rising water levels from coming onto the land. However, these walls are not a perfect solution, as they eliminate the vital nutrients exchange the water and land provide each other.

Mr. Beard believes that there should be more education in our schools regarding climate change, but acknowledges that public schools already have so much to fit into their curriculum. In order to fit more in, you have to take something out, and public school system cannot afford that. He fully supports climate change being discussed more in classes where it applies, such as earth science or environmental studies classes. However, he also points out that it is an extremely complex issue, and just can see public schools being able to fit it into their already jam packed to do list.

Mr. Peratsakis seemed to be slightly more optimistic about the idea of improving education on global climate change in our public schools. He believes much of the reason we have such a problem here in America regarding climate change is ignorance, and because it is so highly politized. He believes teaching students about climate change threats in school will help to de-politicize the topic. He doesn’t feel our schools relate the curriculum to real world issues, and education on climate change can greatly influence that. He feels so passionately about this he has even written a research proposal on redesigning the earth science curriculum to better emphasize the impacts of climate change.

In effect, it seems that the greatest threat to Virginia’s beautiful environment is lack of action taken, which finds its roots in lack of education. 97% of climate scientists believe that humans are causing global warming. There have been few conclusions in history so universally agreed upon, so why, as of 2008, do only 39% of Virginians believe climate change comes from human activity?

The fear of change and personal accountability is prevalent in our country. Mr. Peratsakis sees it as a perverse form of the idealized notion of “rugged Individualism.” Many Americans have this idea of individual rights and freedoms, and coming together cooperatively to solve the climate crisis does not fit into that idealism.

It seems clear that the only way to make a real impact on the climate emergency is bettering education, calling for cooperative efforts, and changing legislation to not support big fossil fuel and other nonerasable energy lobbyists.