Record heat, drought, storms and fire are Earth’s response to people’s influences on climate change and its effects on the environment over the years.
Alysse Ferrara, associate professor of biology, said climate change and its effects are a tangible problem in South Louisiana.  
Nicholls State University, along with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program and Catholic Charities, offered a public screening of Sun Come Up, an Academy award nominated film that tells the story of climate change and the impact it has on people through the world’s first “climate refugees.”  
The movie documents inhabitants of the Carteret Island as they are forced with the decision to relocate from their ancestral island in the South Pacific Ocean when climate change threatens their survival.  
Kerry St. Pe, program director at the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, said, in regards to land loss, “It describes what has been happening to us for the past 50 years. We’re losing more coastal areas due to subsidence, salt water intrusion and other factors.”  
The screening at Nicholls was followed by a panel discussion with Principal Chief Thomas Dardar from the United Houma Nation, Janie Luster, also from the United Houma Nation, Kerry St. Pe from BTNEP and Robert Gorman from Catholic Charities, along with other local participants.         
“I would say everyone has dealt with this directly in this area,” Ferrara said.  “We wanted to tie something that was happening half way around the world to what’s happening here.”
Coastal land loss due to human changes to the landscape and water flow has strangled this part of the state from its sediment source, Ferrara said.
“Because we have these very organic soils we are going to compact, we are going to subside,” she said.  “These are due to changes we’ve made to the Mississippi River and its tributaries that are the primary drivers or forces impacting what is happening here.  We then see that compounded with climate change.”
Rising sea levels and stronger storms are elements of climate change that will make problems and conditions much worse when it comes to coastal erosion.  
On a national scale, Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the Atlantic shoreline two weeks ago and has brought awareness to climate change and how communities along the East Coast should make preparations for rising waters.
According to NPR, studies have shown that areas from North Carolina to Boston will experience more sea level rise than other areas.  
St. Pe said there are 28 National Estuary Programs, and the ones located along the East Coast have turned to the Barataria-Terrebonne Program for advice about how hurricanes are handled locally.  
“We go through it more often than they do,” St. Pe said of South Louisiana’s experience with hurricanes.  
“Other parts of the country are just now feeling the impacts of climate change and it’s important to bring the issue about,” Ferrara said.  “We have sea level rise occurring, but it does not occur equally everywhere around the globe.”  
Global warming can change how currents flow, and as a result, the patterns and strengths of currents overtime have an impact on the amount of sea level rise at a particular area, Ferrara said.
“The areas along the East Coast  are not necessarily subsiding, but we are starting to see what may be the effects of climate change impacting those areas,” Ferrara said.  
According to the Nature Conservancy, higher ocean temperatures are a result of climate change, and as sea surface temperatures continue to rise, hurricanes and tropical storms will contain more energy and become more intense.  
Hurricanes and tropical storms become more of a problem and create more risk with rising sea levels, disappearing wetlands and increased development along the coast.
“Not only do we have to fight to keep the water back, but we also have to fight to keep our land,” Ferrara said.