I keep hearing people debating about the validity of climate change research. It's 2019, and we're still debating something that has been proven over and over again by many scientists. People still don't "believe in climate change". But belief has no chair at the scientific inquiry table. Something either is proven, or it isn't. In this case, climate change IS proven, and has been proven many times over. So why are we still debating if and belief and what if it's not true and all the rest of those skeptical arguments.
There's 2 options for us humans:
1) Do nothing, keep our head in the sand, and pretend like everything is fine.
2) Do everything, make global changes for a better world, and do our best to solve the problem.
Which option do you think will have a better outcome?
Option #2, obviously.
Indulge me for a second, and let's consider something else. We're barreling along an unsustainable path of planetary abuse - pollution, resource consumption, trash everywhere, plastics everywhere, and the list goes on. Even if you ignore climate change and "don't believe in it", we still have a responsibility to do what is right for the planet.
If you disagree, why? My guess is arrogance. The concept that humans have the right to simply use whatever we want (water, air, trees, fish, sharks, any resource) with no respect and with complete disregard for the resource, ourselves, the future, or others is just plain arrogant. It's also disrespectful. Arrogance in the 20th century has gotten us to where we are today, and it has no place in the 21st century or our future.
Let's pretend for a second that in the year 2219 we find out that 97% of the world's scientists were somehow all wrong and that climate change wasn't true after all (but it is, we're just playing pretend in this scenario), but that in 2019 we chose Option #2 because it was the right thing to do. The situation seemed so dire that we took as much progressive, innovative, and clean action as we could for the next 200 years to save the planet the best we could. So that by the time the year 2219 rolls around, we're sitting pretty in a clean world, with loads of biodiversity, with healthy population, with less pollution, healthy coral reefs, and clean air and water. Maybe we lost some species, or land, or reefs, and are a bit warmer than we'd hoped, but ultimately avoiding a catastrophic outcome is a level of success.
Even if we were wrong about climate change, and it wasn't true, the world in 2219 is a much better place than a world where we continued down our current path. So why are we still debating "if" and not doing everything about "how"?
We have so much amazing technology these days that we have the tools to fight climate change. We just need to ACTUALLY DO IT. Let's go, people. Time is running out.
Choosing to do the right thing is not usually the easy decision. It's hard. But it's the right thing to do.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
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