Climate change is the most crucial issue facing our species. If that sounds a bit extreme to you, you’re not alone. Most of my family and friends don’t get as fired up talking about carbon taxes and renewable energy development. Some of them don’t see climate change as a problem. Some people tell me climate change activists are too doom and gloom, that we’re pessimists who can’t stop talking about the end of the world. They’re not entirely wrong.
Climate change rhetoric has been dominated by islands lost to sea level rise, extreme storms destroying cities, and desertification causing starvation. These conversations are tremendously important. We can’t face an issue if we don’t know its consequences. What we need to figure out is how to talk about climate change in a way that unites instead of dividing. Like Adam Frank says in this great podcast, “it’s time to change the way we talk about climate change.”
No one alive today is responsible for the start of the industrial revolution. Oil is not the devil and plastics have led to fantastic products that improve our lives. When your neighbor drives 40 minutes to work, they’re probably not doing it to pollute the air (or maybe they are and you have terrible neighbors). We contribute to climate change because we’re just trying to go on with our daily lives. It’s no surprise then that some people feel attacked when humans are blamed for melting the polar ice caps. Instead of focusing on what we’ve done, we should look towards what we can do under a unified effort.
Consider that it only took us about the last century of our entire existence to have such a huge impact on the climate. In that time, we’ve also cured countless diseases, learned to fly, and figured out how to harness wind, waves, and sunlight to generate electricity! If we worked together towards greenhouse gas reduction, why wouldn’t we be able to reverse the damage? Let’s focus on our amazing capacity to collaborate and solve problems.
Humans possess remarkable ingenuity, creativity, and resolve. When we focus our efforts on a challenge, we can conquer the seas, traverse the skies, and even swap our faces with celebrities on snapchat. Everyone with their vast talents has the opportunity to be part of a human effort to mitigate climate change. We’ve done great things together, and this is just another challenge we can surely conquer. Let’s act now on climate change.
Thien is a Defend Our Future Intern
