Climate change and global warming has been a much more common topic in the past few years, after recent realisation of this important crisis. A quote which I think has brought many to realise the significance of this disaster is from Karen Dionne, a famous author, who stated that, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” This quote for me, sums up our job perfectly. We must work hard to stop the climate crisis and everybody must make their change, and do their part. We have come to listen to this and more of us have become aware as we cannot leave the earth in this state, for the next and future generations. We must solve this problem, as we have created the problem. People like Greta Thunberg, and other climate activists have also played a substantial role in getting the message across in recent years. These campaigners have influenced decisions made around the world, in order to help our earth suffer less. These demonstrators have worked so hard, many just individuals, to help the state of our planet improve. Therefore, in this essay, I will be portraying and showing how individuals can make all the difference, and that each person as independent human beings can do their part, and make an overall difference.
One of the prime reasons which imply that climate change should be dealt with individually, is Garrett Hardin’s exposition of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons.’ This is a theory which suggests that in a shared-resource system, individuals act independently by the way of their personal self-interest, and behave in a way which, through their collective action, depletes the shared resource. In this case, this precious ‘shared resource’ is our earth, gradually being consumed and ruined by the people who it was made for. Well-known commons tragedies include overfished oceans, polluted rivers and city smog. These branches all stem to climate change. Another idea which this hypothesis encapsulates is the fact that these resources do not belong to a group or individual, they are free for anybody to use. And therefore, this theory states that in most individuals even nowadays, there is no wish to conserve these resources. This phrase is becoming increasingly common these days, and we are progressively seeing more of this in daily life, examples such as litter at the park and woodland depletion. Hardin’s main aim in writing this paper was to warn humans of the dangers that we could force upon the environment. To draw this point to an end, Garrett Hardin and his ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ paper, clearly shows that the climate emergency should be tackled mostly individually, through personal aspiration for conserving precious resources and of course, to do your part. And once each person cooperates and gets involved, our earth will be a much better place.
From my point of view, I think Richard Rogers puts our problem perfectly — “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.” Rogers, a renowned architect, gets the message across. Everybody who feels that the earth is their home, should get involved and tackle this crisis. Even companies as individual organisations can help the disaster immensely. A recent report conducted by the CDP (Carbon Majors Report) shows that, since 1988, just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. And unbelievably, only 25 corporations were responsible for more than half of industrial emissions in the same period. Most of these companies are oil and coal producers such as Shell and BP. These companies must, as independent subjects, change their contributions to the environment, and they could make a vast difference to our situation with our planet. This statistic just shows distinctly that individuals must make a personal pledge to improve their ecological situation. Another example where individual change must be enforced, is in China, where as of 2020, have the most total emissions of CO2, and nearly double the amount of tonnes released than the United States, who are second. In this paragraph, I have explained further why individual action will help tackle the climate emergency and given examples of some cases which need large amounts of adaptations to ensure they play their part. Here I have shown why individual action is definitely most efficient as some independent organisations and individuals must do more for the climate than others.
There are countless ways we can help stop climate change and global warming, including changing our diet, our travel habits (long and short distance), energy use, and even family size. And therefore my final point I would like to present, is the fact that these, perhaps some would think, little changes, can make a colossal difference once each person follows this. However, this is a really important point, as however poor or wealthy you are, you can make changes to your personal lifestyle. For example, many energy suppliers now provide the option to use ‘green energy’, which uses electric energy the vast majority of the time. These methods of energy production usually emit no greenhouse gases, once they are up and running. There are many habits which can be changed, as I mentioned above, and researchers have said that some of the most high-impact actions to help stop global warming and climate change individually include : having one fewer child, living car-free, eating a plant-based diet, and avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight. A plant-based diet seems to make a massive change in global emissions — Animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all transportation emissions combined — an incredible statistic, which shows how much of a difference it makes if each individual makes changes to their personal diet. In this paragraph, I hope I have shown the easiness of making small changes to our everyday life, which as a whole, can as I have emphasised throughout the essay, make a global impact, and at first slow the soaring of temperatures, and eventually our actions can stop global warming.
In conclusion, I hope this essay has shown the reader how it is up to our own individual minds, to help combat the surges in global temperatures, the forests being hacked down, the oceans being polluted, the air being contaminated all of which are caused by our selfish and individual actions. What we think is small, for example putting a bit of plastic in the waste bin, if everyone did this, would add up to a colossal issue. This links back to my first point on the ‘Tragedy of the Commons.’ If us humans as individuals act so egocentrically, the earth be inhabitable for the next and future generations. We all have our own independent minds, and we know what the right thing is to do, it is now a question of whether we change our actions and address our bad environmental habits, even if it costs us in another way.
