Climate Change Has Become More Prevalent Of An Issue Among The Public Now

As a kid who has cared about nature his entire life, and an avid modern environmentalist for four years and counting, this issue has been at the center of my psyche for quite some time. I have seen public perspective on this issue change before my eyes. From the original rejection of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie on “global warming” to personally marching alongside 300,000 people in our nation's capital to raise awareness on climate change. However, despite all of these avenues the issue is still spoken about as this distant idea that eventually will be a disaster. Many politicians and news networks speak of the need for slow implementation of policies and programs to right our environmental wrongs. The best way to paraphrase the common narrative of this issue would be to say, climate change is going to happen down the road, it will probably be bad and trying to fix it in the near future would be a good idea. That weak call to action shoves climate change onto the long to-do list of the leaders of our world. Not only does it not create the urgency needed to actually curb the effects of our environmental ignorance, but it does not accurately describe the threat of a changing climate. Treating this like a political issue will not allow for the rigorous changes needed to address such a problem in the timely manner that is required.

An urgent issue, climate change is undoubtedly a sweeping global dilemma of paramount importance. Though most people are aware of this fact, many either choose to ignore it, or acknowledge it, but take no action against it. Those who do choose to take action usually attempt to combat climate change by using the methods that are most commonly discussed: becoming more energy efficient, recycling, and reducing emissions through using more sustainable transportation. Though these actions are helpful, they are not the most efficient way to counter climate change.

The article “Why Bother” written by Michael Pollan explains how bad climate change has become; he uses cheap energy and specialization to slow the phenomenon. He proclaims that people are all waiting around on each other to make the first move but no one is moving. He understands how critical the world has become and suggests people now have to start going green. He says that to modify the way climate change has taken charge, the best ways to slow it down is laws and a massive amount of money. Pollan suggests having a personal garden or even a community garden will help reduce the carbon footprint.

In Michael Pollan’s article “Why Bother?”, he addresses the issue of climate change and the inner reasoning behind those who don’t acknowledge or bother with the crisis. Pollan intertwines a discussion of the rising danger of global warming with a psychological discussion of personal virtue. He emphasis his main point of climate crisis by providing examples and data stating, “we have only ten years left to start cutting—not just slowing—the amount of carbon we’re emitting…So:eight years left and a great deal to do.” (117). His discussion of personal reasoning to the problem of people not responding to global warming is intertwined through the direct question that is the title and by other experiences such as Wendell Berry’s comments on the

A common problem with public goods is the free rider problem. The free rider problem occurs when people want to use a public good, but do not want to pay for it. The reduction of greenhouse gasses should be a global effort. The benefits are vague and provided in the future, there is little incentives to reduce emission. If the Trump administration disregards America’s pledge to reduce carbon emission by 26 to 28 percent, the United States can save millions of dollars on climate policies but increase the threat to the planet. This can lead to other countries not meeting their emission quota. If a majority of the nations who signed the Paris agreement goes back on their promise, a market failure will occur, producing an inefficient result. If too many countries become free riders, the cost of the remaining countries will increase trying to reduce emission. This will then exceed the benefits for the counties to fix the climate problem. Eventually leading to the climate problem being too large for the few remaining countries to solve on their own.

The essay opens up with McKibben talking about how the political campaign against global warming is flawed because at our current point there is nothing much that can be done to fix it.(Mckibben,1) He then goes to state that humans are the biggest culprit behind global warming and supports this by giving examples such as SUVs and American ignorance.(2,9) He concludes by saying that if ten percent of America were to go green, it still would not save the planet, but ten percent could get the government’s attention to pass laws making everyone go green. (11)

As stated in the previous section, climate change is not necessarily a new issue. However it’s been receiving the spotlight lately, as it should. The issue of the “Greenhouse Effect” has been around as early as 1820’s when scientist Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier theorized that the Earth should be colder than it is. His main idea was that the Earth technically had a blanket around it, trapping in heat and keeping us as warm as we are.

However, even for those who are less motivated by such moralistic calls to action, the fact remains that conservation is as much an economic issue as an ethical one. While economic considerations are a problematic feature of climate change policy, under the proper analysis, they also serve as an important motivator.

Climate Change is a very controversial topic, not only in The United States, but in various places around the world. Some people say that it is a hoax, and others put it on the top of their priority list, along with abortions, terrorism and other important topics circulating around the world. Magnum in Motion did a very good and detailed job of swaying people to believe that climate change needs to be a more precedent issue. The video essay portrays climate change as a pogrom, it gives an unbiased opinion, and it presents ways to combat climate change.

The Envorimental protection agency was created in 1970 and since then has been doing it's best to protect the Enviroment. The Envorimental Protection Agency collects emissions data to find opportunities to reduce emissions. (EPA 2016). Obama also implimented a clean power plan that would reduce carbon emission by 30% .(enviormental America 2012). However, Even with these new programs it's still will not be enough. The United States will also have to become comfortable with the fact that the entire nation will need to make the switch to solar and wind energy, as well as create some sort of treaty with other countries that may encompus the entire world to reduce carbon emissions. If the United States does not act quickly or refuses to act then the entire earth will suffer and society as we know it will change forever. In less than a hundred years we may lose all of our coral reefs and the oceans will become acidic "If climate change continues unabated, nearly all coral reef habitats could be devastated. Under our best-case scenario, half of all tropical coral reefs are still threatened" (Kieffer 2012) . For the sake of the future generations we must change now. It's like there is a meteor that's going to hit the earth in 50 years and no one wants to talk about the meteor even though there are viable ways to stop it. We can not wait any longer. If we don't do something then the entire world will suffer. It is time to take action. No more arguing about climate change being a myth. It is a scientific fact that humans are causing the rise in tempature. The world is literally ending and we're the only ones who can stop

They looked at two scenarios, inaction, where business’ continue finding and using carbon as they see fit, and action, where business’ use a low-carbon energy mix. They found that not only would the investment cost of the action scenario be no more than inaction, but it would even cost a bit less- 190.2 trillion dollars for action and 192 trillion dollars for inaction. This is before even considering the amount of money saved by the effects of the action scenario itself. The report found that, “the difference in climate damage costs between low (1.5°C) warming and high (4.5°C) warming scenarios could be as high as $50 trillion” (Business Insider). The effect of such a large economic company reporting this data is the perfect example of how using economics for the sake of reversing global warming can be really beneficial. The argument often used by economists is that becoming more sustainable would hurt the economy, but the data in this report proves just the opposite, and how terrible it would be if we did nothing. For the sake of investment in industry’s like coal and gas, this information is often denied. But this is not anywhere near the first time industry’s have had to adapt due to uncontrollable events. This report emphasizes the importance of recognizing

There is a multitude of evidence that supports the notion that individualistic rational decision making is harmful to the collective. Additionally, the construct of most Western societies currently promotes unsustainable consumption and production habits as well there is evidence that unregulated capitalists’ markets also perpetuate unsustainable activity and make environmental legislation unappealing and in some cases fought against. Stephen M. Gardiner elaborates on the individual and collective idea and how, intrinsically, human nature is to think of self before the collective. In his research A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption Gardiner introduces his fundamental theory of why global citizenship has not been effective in altering climate change: The Tragedy of the Commons Paradox. The following excerpt from his research summarizes this

This article critically examines the ways in which individuals could help reduce the impacts of global warming. The author challenges that every individual could significantly minimise the effects of global warming by adopting to a more responsible lifestyle.

This is the question I would like to address. Each day individuals commit actions of miniscule value that arguably contribute to climate change.

Climate change is a growing concern in today’s world. We often hear about worldwide temperature rises, and how they are caused by pollution. We are warned about some of the potentially catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures in the future. However, climate change has already begun to occur. (NASA, “Climate Change Effects: The consequences of Climate Change”). Therefore, there is significantly more talk about solutions to climate change. These solutions will reduce the causes of climate change, and also prevent any future damage or destruction caused by climate change. However, we must first understand how climate change is caused, and how it affects the Earth, in order to see how these solutions will help solve it.