People give me grief about climate change all the time. Remarks like, “global warming doesn’t exist!” or “people are so hysterical about something that isn’t even real,” or even “go join Al Gore,” come up quite often. It sucks – flat out – it sucks. Climate change is real and it is something we have to be concerned about. We, as a global society, must realize the ways in which we are impacting the environment and strive to minimize said impacts. Changes must be made in the way we live. If we fail to change then we are doomed to negatively and irreparably change our environment. The health of our planet, including ourselves, hangs in the balance.
Now, I say all of this in complete confidence. I know that climate change is real. It is a factual occurrence. This is not true for others. They paint it as some dramatic scheme conjured up by hysterical liberals and granolas with apocalyptic predictions and dreams of extinct hummers. Ok, maybe that’s extreme. There are those who simply do not think that climate change is fact. They do not agree with the scientists. “Global warming isn’t real and Al Gore is annoying.”
Here in lies our problem. How are we to mitigate climate change when a substantial portion of our society does not even believe that it is a problem? What are our options? Well, we could try to persuade them. We could try to educate them. We could make them change their lifestyles through government mandates. We cannot afford to simply do nothing though. What do I do? I try to educate and persuade those skeptical of climate change. I don’t get angry and I don’t accuse them of being defeatist conservatives or something crazy like that. I don’t convince them to like Al Gore either (he can be annoying at times).
Essentially, the only way we’re going to mitigate climate change is by working together. We need to unite, make compromises, and realize that (to be cliché) we’re going to sink or swim together. If we fail to work together then we might as well be made of lead.
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