Can we solve the climate crisis without confronting global inequities?
A recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA found that white residents in the USA produce more climate pollution than black or hispanic residents, but black and hispanic people are exposed to more air pollution.
And that is just the USA! Think about the global inequities in the "haves" and the "have nots".
And how are we going to lift people out of poverty without making the climate crisis even worse?
If you are a resident in a wealthy country, is it your responsibility to address both problems at once? And what would that look like in terms of national and international policy?
Environmental Justice >
Comfort before Care?
For centuries now, we as human beings have been destroying our planet. Though our actions might not seem that big, every single one has a gigantic impact of the environment. By choosing to drive somewhere instead of walking, biking or even taking public transportation we are emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere than necessary. By wanting mores space for cities, factories and malls, so that we can live in abundance, we cut down forests, eliminating entire ecosystems. This process is called deforestation. Our overconsumption, intemperance and lack of constraint is seen everywhere in society; but somehow our compassion, care and action has been missing for so long. People have known, what we are doing to our earth for centuries, but they did not bother to think and stop. Though our earth is not right, for it is the only earth there is, it is the world that does not belong to anybody, though sometimes humans seem to think it belongs to them and they are the only one son it. They set their priorities straight. Before our home and its beauty, they put profit and comfort. We are stripping the earth of all it has, not caring about the fact that the earth gives us so much. The earth gives us life. Without it, we would not exist.
The novel "Dry" by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman explores a dystopian California, during an extreme drought that they call a "Tap Out". The way the novel is written, the reader can infer that it is set in a very near future. It shows the chaos in society and the struggles of the people. By highlighting all these negative effects, every reader can easily say; "This is not what they want for myself". However, the say these things during a call on the newest phone, while eating a highly processed hamburger and while drinking out of a plastic cup. If they really do not want it for themselves then why is nobody ever doing anything. Everybody wants to care, but not because they believe its right, but because they know they should. Everybody wants to care, but who really does care in a society that is built for everybody to keep consuming, a society that is built for everybody to drive fancy cars, in a society that is not built around the needs of the earth.
By putting profit and comfort before everything else, humans have mindlessly done something to the planet that might soon be irreversible. I guess they have chosen the life they want; living abundantly now and suffering later.
I want to mention, that though in a lot of parts of this response I say none, nobody and everybody I know that there really is people out there who try to help. This extreme words were just used to highlight how extreme the situation is, and though people to care, those people are normally not those in power. If the people in powerful positions started working for the environment, then we might be able to make a bigger hange.