The Earth has endured many vicissitudes of various magnitudes ever since the Big Bang, like the extinction of dinosaurs, the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus, and most recently the rapid change in our climate which has led to global warming. Climate change, however, has long been brushed off by us humans, who have only recently realised the severity of this change to our landscape. In the 19th century, esteemed scientists Svante Arrhenius and Joseph Fourier both published scientific papers outlining the danger of what is now known as greenhouse gas emissions. However, they were quickly denounced by the scientific community as most feared that any solutions used to counter this phenomenon would likely impede industrialisation. This leads to the key argument of this article, which argues that it is not about the issue of whether we have the power to combat this persistent issue of climate change, but is instead about what is preventing us from using or showing that we even have that power.
1. We already have all the solutions
We are not powerless, since we already have all the solutions to combat climate change. The issue with this current generation is that we have found more ways to harm than benefit the environment, such that it seems like we are intentionally hurting our environment. Many have conducted efforts to solve climate change, such as through reducing greenhouse gas emissions or to use renewable forms of energy, yet these group of people are not fully utilising these solutions, usually opting to use only a smaller, scaled-down version of them. This is likely due to mankind’s hunt for personal welfare, to satisfy themselves before thinking about the bigger picture. This leads to economic growth being largely favored over reducing usage of fossil fuels/greenhouse gas emissions, which is especially evident in various sectors of the economy, most prevalent of which is the large amount of subsidies given by governments in various corporations working in pollution-inducing industries, just because they earn more money. Hence, we already wield the solutions to climate change, hence it is not that we don’t have the power to do so, but it seems like we only want to use the power sparingly
2. Some big corporations are finally doing the right thing
Big corporations are finally taking a step in the right direction,, and that might just be the push we need, the power we need to solve climate change. In the past, it seemed like big corporations always blatantly burned fossil fuels without giving a hoot about the implications of their actions and the negative externalities generated towards third parties which included everyone in the present and the future. This was done due to the profitability of such operations and since we were just so obsessed with industrialisation and economic growth, we supported them. Supply chains of such industries were also subsidised, causing these corporations to earn even more revenue which incentivised them to pollute even more, and the result was a large spike in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the span of a few decades, unlike anything ever experienced by planet Earth ever. Fortunately, these corporations are finally starting to change their methods in an effort to combat climate change as recent scientific studies hint that their previous unscrupulous behaviour is likely to result in a certain tipping point to be reached which might cause the world to be unlivable for future generations. One of this companies is Apple Inc., a Cupertino based technological company, which is the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalisation. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2020, Apple announced its intentions to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. Apple will remain at 100 percent renewable energy for its operations. In a recent product launch of the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple completely revamped this product. Externally, the computer is made completely out of recycled aluminium, plastics and internally, parts are constructed out of rare earth elements and one of them is Apple’s proprietary M1 system-on-a-chip, which is over 40% more power efficient than industry standard Intel chips which have similar processing power. With what Apple has done, many other companies are likely to follow suit, due to Apple’s large influence over the market , and hopefully, these corporations and even governments will be able to make similar pledges and take necessary action. Hence, we indeed have the power to combat climate change, it is just that we are still waiting for that power to gain momentum.
Climate change is not a laughing matter, it is very real and threatens us and future generations constantly. I hope that we still have the power to actually solve climate change.
Do take note, I am by no means an expert in this field, but I believe strongly that it is not fair that I should not let my opinions on this matter be known, since it may be helpful to some individuals out there. Do follow me for more articles just like this as I project my thoughts and opinions out to the world!!
