Since humans first walked in Africa, we have found ways to survive and thrive despite challenging environments. When we expanded north into harsh, cold conditions, we stayed warm by wearing animal furs. In the modern era, when people were falling victim to bacterial infections, we mass produced antibiotics to treat them. Now, we are racing towards extinction and destroying the only planet we’re able to live on, and some people seem to be fighting against the solution.
But first, the facts; climate change is real, and humans are causing it. Excess CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere directly causes the Earth to get warmer, due to radiation from the sun being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere instead of bouncing off the Earth into space. This is called the greenhouse effect, and scientists have known about it since the 1800’s. Human activities like burning fossil fuels, driving, flying, and more are causing climate change, which will continue to harm our planet unless major changes are made to our behavior in the immediate future.
In Iowa, we’re feeling the effects of climate change already. It’s caused more frequent and more severe flooding, more rain, as well as higher temperatures (especially in the winter and at night). In addition to this, pollutants in the air make it less safe to spend a lot of time outside, notably for people with respiratory conditions.
What can be done? First, we need to start listening to climate scientists instead of politicians or fossil fuel tycoons. When expert opinions are ignored, the public stays uninformed about the very real dangers that are affecting them every day. Climate experts need to be put in positions where they can make real changes to help our planet, and governments need to start truly listening to them. In the long term, we also must shift entirely to renewable energy (which Iowa is well on the way to doing, with over 55% of our power coming from wind alone), reduce food waste, find new solutions to our waste problem (landfills are horrible for the environment in a number of ways), and clean up Earth’s oceans.
Lets zoom out and get the bigger picture. Unfortunately, some politicians have been fighting efforts to stop climate change in recent years. Former President of the United States Donald Trump made several comments denying climate change, including saying that global warming was “invented by the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive” in a 2012 tweet. He, along with other conservative personalities like Tucker Carlson, have continued denying climate change and presenting non-credible science that contradicts peer-reviewed scientific papers. It’s worth noting that Republican political campaigns and conservative media organizations receive large donations from fossil fuel companies like Southern Company, who runs the 2 largest CO2 emitting power plants in the United States.
The pattern is clear; the fossil fuel industry is paying off Republicans to kill or stall green legislation, as well as paying conservative media organizations to sway public opinion on climate change. Although it’s treated like just another topic of political discussion, climate change is the biggest existing threat to humanity. If it isn’t dealt with, humanity could go extinct, or the population could be drastically reduced. We already know the steps we need to take; the only remaining barriers to a healthy planet are financial and political support.