Since the Industrial Age, the globe has grown with the misguided understanding that the Earth can handle our load and that all economic growth is good growth. Society has failed to see that collectively human beings are capable great and horrible things. Now the world is faced with this era’s next great dilemma which is Climate Change. Society has come to a point where there is a seemingly insurmountable task before us. We have to decide between two undesirable possibilities. The global people have to collectively decide to either to speak up and act to change our current course, or to remain silent and allow the current course to continue.
 |
The Charleston Daily Mail Front Page Headline on Pearl Harbor |
History has taught us that our worse nature dominates when the good is silent. The best parallel from history to the current climate change dilemma is the debate before the United States entered World War 2. The debate center around rather the United States should involve itself in another war in Europe, especially after the devastating results of the First World War and Great Depression. The results of appeasement to the Fascist machine had been well known and our allies were desperately requesting US assistance. The United States was face with a dilemma, remain neutral and allow an aggressive power to take hold of a continent or join another multi-continental war, lose thousands of lives, and risk devastation on an already weak economy. When Pearl Harbor was bomb by the Axis, an epiphany within the United States happen which sparked a definitive and collective decision. The idea that the world had become even smaller; and that no longer could the aggressions across the ocean remain across the ocean. So the United States made the undesirable and reluctant decision to go to war because it was not only morally right but was an imperative.
 |
| "A hand covered in crude from an open toxic pool in the Ecuadorean Amazon rainforest near Lago Agrio." - Huffington Post |
The exact same scenario is happening now for Climate Change although at a slower time-frame. Human excess takes the place of Fascist aggression, and the decision is whether society collectively changes the way people live. No technology will be the magic bullet but rather the way society lives will have the biggest impact on the climate. The choice is difficult to determine and carry out. The alternative requires that we has a community of people change the way we buy goods and how we value things, the environment, and other people. The alternative is to live in the same level of comfort and excess as we do now and let nature take its course in adjusting. But just like the realities of global aggression, eventually climate change will have spark an event that will force us to see the realities of the choice we face. Already we have several instances where storms have done unprecedented damage, and our dependence on carbon based energy has ruined the environment not just for animals and wildlife but for the people as well.
 |
| The melting of Muir and Riggs Glaciers in Alaska |
Of course the issue of solving climate change is greatly more complex and involved than any conclusion drawn from one simple historical comparison. But, this comparison explains the state that our planet and the global society are at regarding global climate change. The dilemma essentially comes down to one important question. How much are we willing to sacrifice how we live now to preserve what’s left of the planet for future generations? Putting the issue off for longer only raises the costs and morally passes the burden to future generations to carry.
Images:
from Joanna Zelman,"Chevron Accused Of 'World's Worst Oil-Related Disaster' In Ecuador: Alleged Evidence Submitted In Lawsuit (PHOTOS)"The Huffington Post. Accessed (January 24, 2011) taken by Caroline Bennett
No comments:
Post a Comment