There is no question that our world is changing, some believe that Earth is struggling to maintain itself and others believe that it can no longer return to the environment that it was historically. While my co-contributor chose to focus on the political aspect of environmental challenges, I am focusing on the social part. This is not to discount the political front in any way, but it is my hope to add a further dimension to the challenge we presently have at hand. With such a profound problem comes infinite approaches to the problem and arguments against or for it. This week, I choose to focus on two in the myriad of aspects: the short term issue of dealing with the increasing number of extreme weather disasters and the long term challenge of making environmental change into an economic incentive.
In my lifetime, the world has seen a rise in the incident of extreme weather disasters. Many will argue that these things are merely coincidental and discount the warning of environmental scientists. But, in reality, it is scary to think that things like the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, the fires of Australia in 2006 and of California in 2007, and the 2004 tsunami are occurring more frequently. World agencies and governments all around the world need to accept that problems like this are going to continue to occur as long as the environment continues to deteriorate. Short term, the world has to devote resources to make sure that they reduce the risk of these environmental disasters where possible and pledge support to the struggling masses when such things do occur.
This week, extreme weather disasters hit particularly close to home. I live in Boulder, CO where a forest fire of approximately 7,000 acres has been burning for two days and is still at 0% containment. Even though the cause of the fire is the result of human stupidity, the weather and climate have drastically affected how fast the fire has spread. The forests in Colorado are dried out due to rising global temperatures and drought in the area; this means that fires spread aggressively and quickly. Many will be quick to say that this fire has no connection to the climate change because it is not directly obvious. I personally believe that the world and its ecosystems are all connected and every small change can alter an entire ecosystem. This means that when there is a disturbance to the ecosystem, it has a much greater impact. An increasing number of disasters are becoming a more consistent reality throughout the world. The challenge lies in the world’s ability to stop or quell these disasters and also assist any population that was affected.
My long-term focus concerns something that Gianluca touched on also. He suggested making environment into a business and I think that is one option to progressing environmental issues to the forefront of people’s conscience. In the grimmest sense, the general public, especially in America, will only really make big changes if it is economically viable. I believe that is the biggest challenge that environmentalists face. As the past forty years of efforts have shown, people won’t change without an incentive. You would think that Earth’s wellbeing would concern people, but it’s not as immediate of a concern as money…so it gets trumped. On a more positive note, I do believe it is possible to shift our economic infrastructure to the point where it is more feasible to use environmentally friendly practices. It will take a long time though…
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