Comment
What lessons did we learn from the 20th century? Many would answer about wars, communism, nuclear bombs, or computers but the most important lesson is given to us by the Earth itself. And what our planet is telling us sounds like “You better know what you’re doing.” Indeed, the consequences of our actions catch us off guard right when we thought we subdued the Earth. Now, we find ourselves trapped within the world where the creators of all our problems are only ourselves. Yet, most of us still elude taking responsibility for the ecological crisis we face. If you ask the majority of lay people and activist, who is responsible for the climate change, you would mostly hear something like large corporations, business owners, oil magnates, and government. The point is that every one of us is responsible for the changes happening to our world. And nothing will happen until we communicate this point to the majority of people and change the global paradigm, which all of us should contribute to the change in how we live on this planet.
Response
The issue of climate change has taken over the minds of the people all over the world. The global warming, the meltdown of the Arctic ices, the degradation of the soils, and the elimination of tropical forests seems to be the real issue. Everyone is shocked with how much pollution we create and how fast is the temperature rising all over the globe. We are depleting the Earth's resources at a fascinating rate; we burn coal and oil, and there seems to be no end to it. The news report to us that ecology is getting worse from day to day and that someone should stop this punish the guilty. Yet, the guilty is always someone else but us. All of us are the ones fully responsible for the consequences of climate change and getting this understood will be the first most important step towards the changes.
As Klein smartly pointed out, the changes in how we treat the resources of our planet will strongly affect the ultra rich business owners (468) as the spread of green technologies will significantly affect their income. Yet, even the fact that this class will resist the changes does not make them guilty in all of the ecological disasters. The governments which we elect are also blamed for not taking effective measures. They are always regarded as the ultimate evil and the source of trouble. We, as the final consumers buy and use all the things that are produced using harsh labor, ineffective and harmful technologies and by this support the life of the system we try to oppose. All of this happens because we all let it happen.
The change, however, is much closer than we might anticipate. It is within the grasp of our hands. This is because the changes should be done to ourselves. What separates us from the sustainable economies is our attitude to the issue. If the shift in consciousness of majority will happen, all problems will be solved very shortly. This is supported by all of the social movements and incentives of the past. When majority understood that slavery is inherently bad, it was eradicated, when people understood that everyone has to have equal rights, the changes did not make the world wait. The task is to get the global picture of the problem in our minds. We have to fight the cause, not the symptoms.
Works Cited
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything. Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
