By Kassidy Tsikitas | Staff Writer
Due to drastic winter weather in Texas the past couple years, several 50-year-old oak trees were lost. Organization like student government and Students for Environmental and Wildlife Protection are looking for ways to help restore the beauty of campus.
On Feb. 10, 2021, the massive Texas freeze caused many power outages, frozen plumbing and car pile-ups.
Every spring semester, Baylor mulches and fertilizes parts of campus that didn’t survive the winter months. On April 15, 2021, student government presented a bill — initially totaling around $9,000 — that would fund the planting of nine trees around campus.
Plano junior and Internal Vice President Bethel Tesfai said the bill was not created as a direct result of the 2021 freeze, but it will help inspire future bills to fix the damages.
“We use a Student Government Allocation Fund to fund projects, campus improvements and campus organizations,” Tesfai said. “It was organized in a way that if you didn’t spend everything at the end of a legislative session, it would go back to Baylor.”
Tesfai said a senator motioned the rest of the fund, making the overall funding go up to $30,000.
St. Louis senior and SEWP president Claire Teng said the 2021 freeze struck the Baylor community hard, forcing it to adapt to the severity of the issue quickly.
“When it came to the harsh weather, we thought we can serve the student body best by directing them to helpful resources,” Teng said. “Campus Kitchen was having a food drive for students who were unable to get groceries, so we promoted it to help show support for this organization.”
Dr. James Fulton, professor in the department of geosciences, said the 2021 freeze could have been caused by the oscillation between climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean — known as El Niño and La Niña — which impact the average temperature.
“Climate change, in general, is predicted to cause an increase in extreme weather events that can be exceptionally hot or cold, dry or wet, so the extreme cold fits that model,” Fulton said. “There is compelling research that connects anthropogenic climate change and Arctic warming to polar vortex disruption.”
