Rui Yu

I am here because I have genuine experiences of extreme weather/environmental disasters. When I was younger, I lived in a city of haze and smoke. Over the winter months, we would periodically (every 3 days or so) experience very extreme hazes due to the heating system at its maximum capacity. The hazes were horrible, and I am pretty sure it's beyond the imagination of anyone who has not experienced it firsthand: on the foggy days, the visibility was usually below 50 yards, which means that you literally cannot see across the road - much like the Silent Hill. On certain rare occasions, the sky would also be maroon as if the vampires were out hunting people. I remember that, as a kid, I stayed at home during classes for 4 days consecutively because the government couldn't allow kids to stay outdoors, and I was very annoyed by not seeing anything but a thick layer of gray outside the window. Because I lived not far from a heating system headquarters, I witnessed the massive pollution that the thermal power stations made - from their chimneys directly to the open air. Therefore, I would like to do something to stop my city from continuing in this pattern. I would like possibilities that I could embrace the clean air and the blue sky in winter, which is one of the reasons why I chose to attend college in California - for your decent weather and constant sunny days. I hope that my actions can be a part of the movement to save the climate in my city.