By: Muhammad Haroon
Never some time recently in human history have, we been wealthier, more progressed or powerful. And however, we feel overpowered within the confront of fast climate change. It appears basic on the surface. Nurseries gasses trap vitality from the sun and exchange it for our air. This leads to hotter winters; harsher summers dry if it’s not too much trouble gotten to be drier and damp if it’s not too much trouble wetter endless biological systems will kick the bucket whereas the rising seas swallow coasts and the cities, we construct on them. So why do not we just prevent all of that? Well, it is complicated.
The public debate about stopping rapid climate change often focuses on few key features like coal plants, cars, or burping cows and so the solutions are often simplistic rows of solar panels, biking to work something sustainability and huge taking point is personal reasonability. How you should change your lifestyle to prevent rapid climate change, we first need to understand real problem. Modern industrial society as we constructed it in the last 150 years, is inherently destructive to the planet. Basically, everything we do to make our lives easier, safer and more comfortable is making things worse for the biosphere. The food we eat, the streets we walk on, the cloths we wear, the gadgets we use, the way we move around and the pleasant temperatures we artificially create around us. While most people know about the serious impact of energy, beef, cars and planes, many major polluters are barely ever talked about.
The emissions leaking out of landfills are as significant as the emission of all the jets in the air. More CO2 is released to run our homes than from all cars combined. And the emissions produced when making a new car is equivalent to building just two meters of road. So, it is nice to switch to electric cars but they would not solve anything if we keep building roads the same way. Fixing one small part of the industrial system is not enough. Each of the many different parts needs its own solution and many of them are not straightforward. But even where we know what to do, just because a solution exists doesn’t mean we are able or willing to implement it. There are many areas in the fight against rapid climate change, the most prominent one is the divide between rich and poor. Emissions VS Poverty. There is a clear connection between the prosperity of a nation and its carbon emissions. In other words, richer people tend to cause more emissions. So, the key to fixing climate change is simply for the words richest to cut back on their extravagant lifestyles, right? While this would help, it wouldn’t make the problem go away. This is because 63% of global emissions come from low to middle-income countries. Countries where most people are not living extravagantly but are trying to escape poverty at worst, and achieve a comfortable lifestyle at best.
The unfortunate reality is that, currently escaping poverty and becoming middle class create unavoidable emissions. So, asking developing countries to cut emissions just looks like an attempt to keep them down. It is very hard to argue that a region should protect its primeval forests and spend money on solar panels instead of burning wood when it cannot meet the basic needs of significant parts of its population. So, cutting back is not a popular demand especially if the countries making these demands got rich by causing environmental damage in the past. For billions of people, more emissions are a good thing personally. When we forget about this, we tend to propose unworkable solutions. Take concrete. 8% of CO2 emissions are released by the concrete manufacturing industry. Ok cool, stop using concrete, right? But right now, concrete is also a cheap and easy way for growing populations in developing countries to build affordable housing. And there are many examples like that. Gas cooking, old equipment, waste combustion. Even rich countries are not immune from disagreeing about rapid climate change solutions. Bunning coal, gas and oil from the energy mix is slowed down by heated discussions about what should replace them. Citizens can be strictly against unclear power but also oppose wind or solar infrastructure in their backyards. In principle, all of these issues can be overcome but there are things we do not currently know how to overcome.
