Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a dinner conversation with our visiting fellow, Ruth Magreta. Her expertise was about climate change and agriculture, specifically in Malawi. I found the conversation very insightful since I knew very little about the effects of climate change in countries like Malawi before. We hear a lot about the effects of climate change here in the U.S. but in sort of removed ways.  We hear of weather phenomenons and changing temperatures but Ruth told us personal anecdotes about floods that happen in her area almost every year. She recounted the one that hit last year in which she had to cross a flooded river in her car with her children, truly scared for their lives. This spawned conversations about how the countries that have the most resources to combat climate change, like the U.S., usually don’t feel the direct and visual impact of its most consistent and problematic effects.

The conversation also shifted to other cultural differences between Malawi and the U.S. For example, Ruth and another visiting scholar asked about gender ratios in education at Cornell and were shocked to find out the basically equivalent ratio between boys and girls. It’s moments like this that remind me of the intangible privileges I have living in the U.S. This entire conversation was eye-opening in that it challenged me to look at the problems that the world faces as a whole and the privileges we have in the U.S. We need to be more vigilant about how we treat our planet not only for ourselves and futures but also for the people across the world that don’t have the resources to prevent such problems that impact their daily life.