During the first week of October, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a landmark report, which stated that unprecedented changes are required in dictating how humanity lives on Earth. If such changes suggested in the report are not made, the world might become uninhabitable for man by the year 2040, when lethal heat waves and droughts are expected to ravage our planet.
The UN already had one such agreement, the Paris Climate Accords, which put the responsibility of reducing greenhouse emissions on all the countries within the UN. The Accords encouraged signatories to keep the temperature increase of the planet between the 1.5-2 degrees Celsius range.
However, scientists say that even if this agreement is fulfilled, the effects of climate change may continue to be felt. There has to be a severe change in our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, our dedication to renewable energy, recycling, and our consumption to actually improve our environment in the long-term.
As of now, the picture seems bleak. On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump promised to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accords and open up new possibilities for the fossil fuel industry and others. Similar to Trump, Brazil’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro, has also stated that he plans to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords in order to open up the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness. Based on a report from The Guardian, only 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions of greenhouse gases that have resulted in such change in our environment, and they have no intention to stop.
Given all of these facts, what action should one take? At this point, individuals should not bear the burden of reversing the whole process of climate change. The individual needs guidance, as well as support from government policies, on how to significantly change their lifestyles to affect climate change. For example, Norway provides tax-cuts and free refueling stations for people who invest in electric cars, which has reduced the number of people who purchase cars that run on diesel or fuel. Some states within the US, such as California, have taken Norway’s lead and provide benefits to electric car owners. These benefits, however, are not significant enough to push a large scale shift to electric cars.
The fossil fuel industry contributes to climate change. Coal or oil companies, especially ones
listed as producing the most greenhouse-gas emission, should be motivated to invest in clean, renewable energy instead of building new pipelines to further fossil fuel harvest. Governments should further implement restrictions on companies if necessary, ranging from where they could operate and to what extent drilling for oil is permissible. This would force companies to adopt new, environment-friendly policies–if not change companies entirely.
These answers, switching to renewable energy and shrinking the fossil fuel industry, are the main solutions people point to when climate change is discussed. There are, however, many other factors that affect climate change. Two of them are farming and agriculture. Farming is more efficient when yield is produced with less land. Several projects with this idea in mind have started to enter the mainstream, most notably Kimbal Musk’s farm of the future. With support from his brother, entrepreneur Elon Musk, he has managed to build a farm in a container that provides the same yield as a regular farm. With growing efficiency in farming, fewer contaminants such as pesticides would be used and less damage would be done to nature. Another more critical aspect of farming is cattle. The breeding of cattle to an extent where enough food is produced for millions, even billions, of people results in a huge release of methane, a severe greenhouse gas.
This is where the individual comes into play. In order to preserve Earth as we know it, we need to change the habits that have been etched into us over the centuries. We need to change our eating habits, relying less on cattle and breeding, and switch to a more eco-friendly diet, where main nutrients are acquired from vegetables and legumes. We also need to decrease our waste, whether it be waste from food items, water, plastic, or paper. Instead of utilizing and supporting disposable items, we should switch to reusable, long-term products. Countries such as Germany no longer provide plastic bags in supermarkets as a way to promote tote-bags use, and other countries like Taiwan have followed suit. All these aspects will both reduce pollution at an individual level while also signaling to large companies to switch gears and start adapting to sustainable public trends.
Over the last couple of decades, climate change policy has not been a priority because people thought they had much more time to create a sustainable environment. At this point in time, one cannot toss such a subject to the side. Climate change is rapidly impacting our planet to a point where we need to respond or else the only home we have will eventually become uninhabitable. Even though people would prefer an early arrival rather than a late one, climate change is that one thing that nobody wants to see arrive early. •
