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    UM chooses enrollment veteran to fill new vice chancellor position

    Mississippi voters passed Initiative 65. What’s next?

    Mississippi voters passed Initiative 65. What’s next?

    Thousands of scholars rally behind fired UM professor

    Campus prepares for flu season, ‘uptick’ in cases

    University assembles vaccination task force

    Oxford man shot, killed by police after domestic violence situation

    Gallery: Drive-Thru Drag Show

  • Sports

    Gallery: Ole Miss women’s basketball defeated by Mizzou 86-77

    Gallery: Ole Miss men’s basketball falls to Florida 72-63

    Rebels bring home Outback Bowl trophy after 26-20 win over Indiana

    Gallery: Ole Miss defeats Indiana 26-20

    Ole Miss receives bowl-game invite despite LSU loss

    Ole Miss vs Arkansas

    Ole Miss football’s Elijah Moore and Kenny Yeboah to focus on NFL Draft

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    The secret to The Luv Shak’s success

    A look into the fluctuating Oxford food truck business

    A look into the fluctuating Oxford food truck business

    Film Festival brings classic pastime to a new generation

    UM band plays together for the first time this year

    UM band plays together for the first time this year

  • Opinion
    Cartoon: The way you in my business

    Cartoon: The way you in my business

    Opinion: Insulin is far from “cheap like water”

    Cartoon: Vice president-elect Kamala Harris

    Cartoon: Vice president-elect Kamala Harris

    Opinion: We need civility in American politics

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  • News

    UM chooses enrollment veteran to fill new vice chancellor position

    Mississippi voters passed Initiative 65. What’s next?

    Mississippi voters passed Initiative 65. What’s next?

    Thousands of scholars rally behind fired UM professor

    Campus prepares for flu season, ‘uptick’ in cases

    University assembles vaccination task force

    Oxford man shot, killed by police after domestic violence situation

    Gallery: Drive-Thru Drag Show

  • Sports

    Gallery: Ole Miss women’s basketball defeated by Mizzou 86-77

    Gallery: Ole Miss men’s basketball falls to Florida 72-63

    Rebels bring home Outback Bowl trophy after 26-20 win over Indiana

    Gallery: Ole Miss defeats Indiana 26-20

    Ole Miss receives bowl-game invite despite LSU loss

    Ole Miss vs Arkansas

    Ole Miss football’s Elijah Moore and Kenny Yeboah to focus on NFL Draft

  • Arts & Culture

    The secret to The Luv Shak’s success

    A look into the fluctuating Oxford food truck business

    A look into the fluctuating Oxford food truck business

    Film Festival brings classic pastime to a new generation

    UM band plays together for the first time this year

    UM band plays together for the first time this year

  • Opinion
    Cartoon: The way you in my business

    Cartoon: The way you in my business

    Opinion: Insulin is far from “cheap like water”

    Cartoon: Vice president-elect Kamala Harris

    Cartoon: Vice president-elect Kamala Harris

    Opinion: We need civility in American politics

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Opinion: We are a species worth saving

Ainsley AshbyAinsley Ash
September 29, 2019
3 min read

Nothing is quite as sobering as droves of elementary school-age children around the world skipping school to ask their governments for a viable chance to inherit a habitable Earth. From Sept. 20-27, over 7.6 million children, parents, grandparents, neighbors (re: humans) around the planet disrupted their daily lives to strike against government inaction regarding the ongoing climate crisis. 

Oxford was no exception. On Friday, nearly a hundred students, professors and children and parents gathered in the Circle, armed with colorful sidewalk chalk and witty cardboard signs in 90 degree September weather. 

“We have less than twelve years to protect our homes and our children from danger that will be irreversible,” said Heather Toney, local leader of Moms Clean Air Force. “This means more floods, more damage that we cannot change… I don’t know about you, but I actually like the Earth. I’m not ready to move to Mars.” 

Every week, I sit in a dystopian literature class and become more and more convinced that we are, in fact, living in an environmental dystopia, a world in which colonizing Mars is not off the table. Whenever I get a news notification to my phone, I feel a slight drop in my stomach. It is as if, unwittingly, I have subscribed to a flavor of the week club for the newest condemning piece of evidence. 

“North American bird population has dropped by 3 billion since 1970, study reveals,” states Fox News. 

“Air pollution particles found on foetal side of placentas – study,” says the Guardian. 

“As Amazon Smolders, Indonesia Fires Choke the Other Side of the World,” reads the New York Times. 

Sometimes, though, the notifications do not elicit a slight drop in my stomach – I have come to expect them. As weather events become more prevalent and extreme in nature, climate norms are continually redefined. If the intentional deforestation of the Amazon, our Earth’s lungs, did not move the needle toward global political action and consensus, then what will? You do not have to look as far as Brazil to be concerned, though. Instead, look to the flooding in the Mississippi Delta, threatening our most vulnerable neighbors, our crops and our economy. 

So what, then, do we do when today’s children ask for a chance to survive into their 20s and I ask for my fair share of 80 years? Will we deny culpability and say we didn’t realize we were like frogs in water once cool and inviting but now brought to a boil? 

We have cast our pearls before swine, forsaking the quality of life of current and future generations in exchange for the complacency and conveniences of today’s social, political and economic structures. If we believe that there is anything unique and beautiful about the human experience worth saving for future generations, then now is the time to act, in the hopes of mitigating the crisis human activity has already set in motion. 

We must be honest with ourselves: forgoing plastic straws and believing in human ingenuity are gratifying, but they will not be enough. 

Action will require sacrifice like never before seen: the reframing of an unending global economic growth model, the uprooting of current agricultural and industrial practices and the rejection of modern conveniences. With a crisis so immense, it is daunting to know where to begin. Yet, individual actions must compound in collective social and political will, holding ourselves and our government accountable on behalf of our species. 

Hundreds and hundreds of years from now, Earth will still exist, regardless of human action or inaction. Will we? 

Ainsley Ash is a junior public policy leadership major from Meridian, Mississippi.

In Case You Missed It

Gallery: Ole Miss women’s basketball defeated by Mizzou 86-77

4 days ago

Gallery: Ole Miss men’s basketball falls to Florida 72-63

4 days ago

UM chooses enrollment veteran to fill new vice chancellor position

7 days ago

Rebels bring home Outback Bowl trophy after 26-20 win over Indiana

2 weeks ago

Gallery: Ole Miss defeats Indiana 26-20

2 weeks ago

Ole Miss receives bowl-game invite despite LSU loss

4 weeks ago

Opinion: We are a species worth saving

Ainsley AshbyAinsley Ash
September 29, 2019
3 min read

Nothing is quite as sobering as droves of elementary school-age children around the world skipping school to ask their governments for a viable chance to inherit a habitable Earth. From Sept. 20-27, over 7.6 million children, parents, grandparents, neighbors (re: humans) around the planet disrupted their daily lives to strike against government inaction regarding the ongoing climate crisis. 

Oxford was no exception. On Friday, nearly a hundred students, professors and children and parents gathered in the Circle, armed with colorful sidewalk chalk and witty cardboard signs in 90 degree September weather. 

“We have less than twelve years to protect our homes and our children from danger that will be irreversible,” said Heather Toney, local leader of Moms Clean Air Force. “This means more floods, more damage that we cannot change… I don’t know about you, but I actually like the Earth. I’m not ready to move to Mars.” 

Every week, I sit in a dystopian literature class and become more and more convinced that we are, in fact, living in an environmental dystopia, a world in which colonizing Mars is not off the table. Whenever I get a news notification to my phone, I feel a slight drop in my stomach. It is as if, unwittingly, I have subscribed to a flavor of the week club for the newest condemning piece of evidence. 

“North American bird population has dropped by 3 billion since 1970, study reveals,” states Fox News. 

“Air pollution particles found on foetal side of placentas – study,” says the Guardian. 

“As Amazon Smolders, Indonesia Fires Choke the Other Side of the World,” reads the New York Times. 

Sometimes, though, the notifications do not elicit a slight drop in my stomach – I have come to expect them. As weather events become more prevalent and extreme in nature, climate norms are continually redefined. If the intentional deforestation of the Amazon, our Earth’s lungs, did not move the needle toward global political action and consensus, then what will? You do not have to look as far as Brazil to be concerned, though. Instead, look to the flooding in the Mississippi Delta, threatening our most vulnerable neighbors, our crops and our economy. 

So what, then, do we do when today’s children ask for a chance to survive into their 20s and I ask for my fair share of 80 years? Will we deny culpability and say we didn’t realize we were like frogs in water once cool and inviting but now brought to a boil? 

We have cast our pearls before swine, forsaking the quality of life of current and future generations in exchange for the complacency and conveniences of today’s social, political and economic structures. If we believe that there is anything unique and beautiful about the human experience worth saving for future generations, then now is the time to act, in the hopes of mitigating the crisis human activity has already set in motion. 

We must be honest with ourselves: forgoing plastic straws and believing in human ingenuity are gratifying, but they will not be enough. 

Action will require sacrifice like never before seen: the reframing of an unending global economic growth model, the uprooting of current agricultural and industrial practices and the rejection of modern conveniences. With a crisis so immense, it is daunting to know where to begin. Yet, individual actions must compound in collective social and political will, holding ourselves and our government accountable on behalf of our species. 

Hundreds and hundreds of years from now, Earth will still exist, regardless of human action or inaction. Will we? 

Ainsley Ash is a junior public policy leadership major from Meridian, Mississippi.

In Case You Missed It

Gallery: Ole Miss women’s basketball defeated by Mizzou 86-77

4 days ago

Gallery: Ole Miss men’s basketball falls to Florida 72-63

4 days ago

UM chooses enrollment veteran to fill new vice chancellor position

7 days ago

Rebels bring home Outback Bowl trophy after 26-20 win over Indiana

2 weeks ago

Gallery: Ole Miss defeats Indiana 26-20

2 weeks ago

Ole Miss receives bowl-game invite despite LSU loss

4 weeks ago

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