The world is on fire. Not metaphorically, not symbolically, not politically, but literally. Lahaina on the island of Maui has disappeared, taking over 100 lives, and hundreds of homes, and leaving thousands displaced. Canada is in flames turning over 33 million acres charred, black and unlivable, causing the northeastern part of the United States to become nearly inhabitable with smoke and displacing almost 200,000 people or the equivalent of the population of Salt Lake City. In other parts of the world, Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa people are getting cooked alive in their homes by one of the hottest heatwaves in history. Adding on to their wildfires, droughts, floods, and changing weather patterns. Back in the USA for the first time in almost a hundred years, the west coast is being hit by a hurricane, the water level is rising worldwide and mudslides, floods, and major rains are becoming more and more common. Now it's on my generation to fix, regrow, rehouse, and rebuild everything that has been destroyed.
We can officially use the phrase Global Warming with support and that is going to open doorways to many conversations. As time continues to pass it will only keep getting progressively more urgent to have real conversations about how to backtrack the damage humans have been doing since the Industrial Revolution. However, this conversation won't be an easy one to have. Due to the way of life that most developed countries have been so comfortably living for over 100 years now, it won't be an easy conversation and it will be an even harder agreement to make. When you look at the statistics of which countries produce the most carbon waste the biggest three are China, the United States, and India (see links 1 and 2 below), these three countries also happen to be the three countries with the highest populations. Changing them to globally efficient countries will not only create a goal for smaller, less populated countries to strive for. But also create a baseline/ plan for developing countries to follow. However, these three countries are also going to be the hardest to "convert".
The "way of life" in these big countries has a very large range. In China, 24.07% of its citizens live below the poverty line in 2019 (the poverty line for comparison is $5.50 per day). In the United States that percentage is 11.6% and in India its 16.4% with 4.6% living in extreme poverty (see links 3,4,5 below). However, people living below the poverty line aren't the ones doing the damage, they are the ones who will feel the most impact.
"The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth." (oxfam.org)
The difference in lifestyles between poor income, middle income, and the top 1% tends to be quite drastic. The hardest part when coming to a "decision" is going to be finding a way to accommodate all the different lifestyles but also make them environmentally friendly. Making green energy more cost-efficient, public transportation electric or hydrogen-powered, taking plastic products off the market and replacing them with more sustainable options, bringing better food options to grocery stores for lower costs, building family homes out of more sustainable materials, teaching kids in schools, and converting the environment people are already living in to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. But all of this costs money and not a small amount of it. That is going to be the hardest part to continue the conversation once it has started, convincing people, and people in the government that to save our futures we are going to have to find a way to safely use a lot of money.
Now that I have thrown a lot of opinions and bad news on you I want to change the subject a little. It's scary to start a conversation that you know has a very high chance of being buried, but there are already people putting the logs together to light the fire. There are people already fighting, for plastic reduction, change in energy production, sustainable living, and actual government involvement in the fight for our futures. A group of 16 teenagers in Montana actually sued the state and won in a "climate-change trial" (see link 7 below). Greta Thunberg marches in countless cities with her organization Fridays for Futures and has a huge audience (see link 8 below).
It is the new generation, my generation, and everyone after's responsibility to continue the conversation and amp it up to full swing and eventual agreements. That is our burden and that has become our responsibility, whether we like it or not. To survive and keep the planet viable for our children and grandchildren the way of life we have all grown up with is going to have to change, and soon. People have been building the fire pit to light the fire for years and soon, it will be lit. The question is simply, will you help keep it lit, and will you protect it from anyone who tries to extinguish it?
Thank you for reading, and feel free to visit the links below for more information on any and all of the topics I touched on!
Links/Sites:
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/
https://www.worlddata.info/the-largest-countries.php
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/poverty-rate
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-month.html
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/governance/india-has-pushed-back-poverty-still-home-to-most-poor-people-in-world-undp-index-85502
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity#:~:text=The%20richest%20one%20percent%20of,period%20of%20unprecedented%20emissions%20growth.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/07/23/youths-sue-mt-in-groundbreaking-climate-change-trial-5-things-podcast/70452716007/
https://fridaysforfuture.org
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