It’s all in our heads.
That was an essential point that John Steinbruner, Amy Luers, Susanne Moser, and Kenneth M. Chomitz floated into the diffusive cloud of our collective consciousness regarding climate change. We have the technological capabilities, but we’re not doing much. We concern ourselves with specific costs that entail mitigation programs when it’s “not meaningful” to do so, as Dr. Chomitz said. So where does the true issue lie?
Perhaps the roots of our problems are tangled within our culture of not taking effective action until we meet the dire consequences face to face. Mark Hertsgaard, the moderator of the “Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable” discussion, raised an intriguing question about why parents, having faced the feat of guarding their children from World War II and terrorist attacks in previous decades, are not as quick to prepare for the increasingly immense scale at which environmental damage is affecting us. The effects of climate change are threatening us from all angles, and yet we fail to mobilize.
I agree that we as a people need to shift our priorities. Only then can we move towards creating satellites specially designed for monitoring environmental changes and effectively call upon our government to cooperate with other countries to establish a global carbon price. Until we rid ourselves of this “attitude problem” about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and initiating climate change talks in our communities, we will be the ones to tell future generations that we just stood by and watched.
This is a re-post of an entry I wrote for the World Affairs Education Program Blog on "Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable," one of the many intriguing dialogues from this year's annual World Affairs Conference. See the link below.
http://wacsfschools.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/its-all-in-our-heads/
To watch and listen to John Steinbruner’s talk, visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/audio-video/2013/climate-change-1.html
No comments:
Post a Comment