Talk about sweater weather

By Ryan Jones

Students and employees of the Greater Essex County District School Board are bundling up to combat climate change.

The first Thursday in February is known as Sweater Day, which kicks off  sweater month. People wear sweaters to school because thermostats have been turned down by two degrees. Some participated for one day, some for a two-week span and some will sweater it out for the entire month. This movement was created to limit energy use in an attempt to fight back against climate change.

According to NASA Global Climate Change, the main cause of climate change is human activity. The burning of fossil fuels produces high amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, which causes the earth to heat up.

Gary Archibald is a CTV Windsor meteorologist and said there is a difference between weather and climate.

“Climate is about what takes place over time and what we’re looking at is trends. We’re looking at presence and we’re looking at history. When we think about Canadian weather and winter season, we have a sense of what we can expect over time based on what has happened in the historical record,” said Archibald.

Scott Scantlebury is the public relations officer with GECDSB and said the sweater month movement started three years ago.

“It was a result of the promotion done by the World Wildlife Federation which adopted National Sweater Day as a good opportunity for people to express their concern about climate change,” said Scantlebury.

He said sweater month will continue on an annual basis, among other future plans.