The Climate is Changing; Can We?

Aidan Minnihan

HST401-A

Professor John Horgan

22 March 2023

The Climate is Changing; Can We?

It is far from a secret at this point that the planet is on the verge of irreparable damage on account of the changing climate, and the blame falls squarely on our shoulders. From the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from factories to deforestation in order to clear space, it is obvious that all of the causes of global warming are our fault, and the results will be nothing short of catastrophic, from the rising water levels to the increase in forest fires. Naturally, since this is all our doing, and since we are the only ones with the capacity to fix our mistakes, it is up to us as a collective species to try to undo climate change before it becomes irreversible. There’s just one enormous problem with that: many humans are averse to change, especially ones that could see their lifestyles uprooted. It’s quite telling that, in an article by David Herring and Rebecca Lindsey, there is assurance that global warming can be reversed… if every single possible human emission were to stop right now. They even confess that it would take “dramatic action” in order to make any change, a phrase that’s certain to turn many people away from the possibility (Herring, Lindsey). Tell any average person to stop using their cars, limit their use of electricity, and include less meat in their diet, and you would be met with much resistance.

As much as I loathe to say it, I am very much part of the problem with that regard. I feel as though I stand where many other individuals stand on the matter; even one of these changes would feel like a major shift in how I approach my life, let alone all three and then some. I sincerely wish that I had the fortitude to make such a change, but it is made even harder by the fallacy that I, as an individual, have no effect. If I stopped using my computer right now, not only would I fail to finish this paper by its deadline, but I would also have the nagging thought of how little impact I would have in the grand scheme of things. I am only one of tens of thousands of people in any given city, let alone the country or the world; my impact would be comparable to a water drop in the vast ocean. It’s likely that many others feel the same way as I do, and the unfortunate effect of that is that if everyone thinks like that, then indeed, no change will occur.

It’s especially hard to feel like an individual’s efforts will have any impact when there are those who pride themselves on making zero effort to even acknowledge climate change as an existing threat. Those who deny the existence of climate change surely doom us to suffer from its effects at an even greater magnitude. Beyond those individuals, however, there are even groups of people in high positions of power who refuse to do anything to prevent climate change, or even prepare for the potential fallout of it at the very least. For example, the United States government had backed out of the Paris Climate Accord in 2017, a treaty covering ways to mitigate climate change. While I concede that the greater workings of this agreement are not fully known by me and might have caused great difficulty for the country, it is worth noting that the vast majority of nations agreed to these accords. 

More recently, though, a research blog post by Adie Tomer and Caroline George of the Brookings Institution discussed the great danger that climate change poses to air travel as a whole, elaborating upon how many airports would be put out of commission as the water levels rise. In spite of such potential dangers, however, “the federal government still does not compel airport authorities to harden their assets. There is no requirement that airport authorities draft resilience plans focused on adaptation, which limits their understanding of both individual climate risks and the potential costs to address those risks” (Tomer and George). If the government will not even make preparations for what might happen if climate change does become irreversible, and it also refuses to do anything to mitigate climate change either, then what hope should any single individual have?

I wish that I could write a more hopeful article instead of this. I wish I could say that if we all put in the effort, the Earth would be saved and we could live on happily with our lives. Sadly, at least to me, it doesn’t seem so simple. Perhaps I’m just too pessimistic, but from how it seems to me, it would take a near-impossible level of cooperation from countless groups of people that just cannot get along, along with support from a government that is not always as concerned as it should be, in order to prevent the irreversible change on our lives that climate change would bring.



Works Cited

Herring, David, and Rebecca Lindsey. “Can We Slow or Even Reverse Global Warming?” NOAA Climate.gov, 12 Oct. 2022, https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa /can-we-slow-or-even-reverse-global-warming. 

Tomer, Adie, and Caroline George. “America's Airports Aren't Ready for Climate Change.” Brookings, Brookings, 1 Mar. 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2023/03/ 01/americas-airports-arent-ready-for-climate-change/. 

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