Environmental Satire

A very funny bit from Jon Stewart about the recent People's Climate March in New York City highlighting the difficulty in getting political progress on climate change even in the House of Representatives of supposedly the world's biggest superpower.

Just a short post. I was just thinking about the terms 'Saving the world' or 'Saving the environment' and asked myself, does the environment really need saving? Sure, humans are having a great impact on the environment, enough for the term 'anthropocene' to be used to describe the current time period, but is the environment really that helpless? Over the course of the earth's history, there has been much more inhospitable conditions on earth as compared to what we have now. Yes, there has been significant climate change now but nature has always had a way to adapt and thrive in the harshest of conditions.

I believe using the terms mentioned above is inaccurate and is not useful in the cause of mitigating climate change. A more appropriate term would be 'Saving ourselves'. Why? While nature is the master of surviving, the same cannot be said of humans. The rising sea levels, pollutants, and overall drastic environmental change are causing some populations to struggle especially in the less developed countries. When we move forward with solutions to environmental change, these groups of people must always be in our thoughts as they bear the brunt of environmental change yet do not receive any substantial benefits.

Perception of climate change in the media

The media is an important tool in getting the public to be concerned about climate change. Here is a short clip of Bill Nye, a popular science educator, and Marc Morano, an economist debating the effects of climate change.

The problem with this is that there are still people in powerful positions who hold the view that climate change is not an imminent threat to our survival as a species. Until we get their mindsets to change, our future generations will suffer from our lack of mitigation of this issue.

The Copenhagen Calamity

Climate change is very much a global issue. It affects every single one of us living on earth. However, as an individual, we don't really have much of impact on this issue. If I were to suddenly change to a zero carbon output lifestyle, would global climate change be affected even in the slightest bit considering the activities of my 7 billion neighbours on earth? A bit too pessimistic for an environment studies student? I like to look at things as they are. The fact of the matter is the politicians of the most important countries in the world aren't even serious when it comes to climate change. As can be implied from the title, I'll be discussing the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, also known as the Copenhagen Summit.

The Copenhagen Summit included the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol. At the previous United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2007 at Bali, a framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012 was to be agreed at the Copenhagen Summit. The main thing that came out of the Copenhagen Summit was instead the Copenhagen Accord. The Copenhagen Accord is not legally binding and was merely 'taken note of' by the 193 states present at the Copenhagen Summit. 

Regardless of the content of the Copenhagen Accords, the fact that it was merely 'taken note of' just shows the level of difficulty in bringing a group of nations together to agree on a deal to limit emissions at the cost of economic growth. Political consensus has not yet matched up to the scientific consensus on climate change. This is important as the future of the earth's climate is in the hands of our leaders. While we do also have a part to play, the impacts of their decisions far outweigh anything the a normal person can do. The science of climate change has been settled. Its time for the politics of climate change to move forward to safeguard our future.