Climate Change’s Origin and Where It’s Taking Us
In June 2023, Canadian wildfires washed parts of the U.S. in smoke and drove down the air quality. July 2023 was the hottest month to date. In August, Maui was devastated by wildfires that took the lives of hundreds and burned throughout the island. On top of that, everyday temperatures are continuing to rise. We’re living in a world of fire. It’s too hot.
This didn’t just happen overnight. Climate change didn’t just show up at our doorstep. This is the result of decades of ignored alarms. When climate scientists warned that things were getting critical, those in power refused to take the necessary precautions in order to cool things down. Now, the people are being scathed by the effects of climate change.
According to the United Nations’ article, “Causes and Effects of Climate Change,” “fossil fuels–coal, oil and gas–are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat.” As the sun’s heat gets trapped, we see hotter days as a result, and by extension, droughts and changing weather patterns. Fossil fuels are radically shaping our everyday lives, and not in a healthy way. I know we’ve been seeing more 100ºF+ days in Chicago, and at our current rate it’ll continue to rise.
This isn’t newfound information, either. In 2014, scientists had already warned that our current track could lead to irreversible damage. In an LA Times article titled “Scientists sound the alarm in climate change report,” the author highlights a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “which regularly reviews and synthesizes the latest climate change research, the report says there are more heat-trapping gasses in the atmosphere than at any time in at least the last 800,000 years, and that most of them came from the combustion of fossil fuels since the advent of widespread industrialization in the late 1800s.” The article continues, talking about how the “the steps taken so far by countries to reduce or mitigate emissions are not enough, the scientists said, and under the business-as-usual scenario, the world runs the risk of consequences so grave that they are irreversible and cannot be adapted to.” Our industrialized way of life is leading us to the point of no return.
And fossil fuel companies have been aware of this. As early as the 1970s, ExxonMobil knew “that the burning of their fossil fuel products was going to heat the planet by about 0.2C of warming every decade,” according to Geoffrey Supran, a University of Miami professor of environmental scientist and policy who helped sift through Exxon’s initial reports from back then. Even though Exxon knew they were running these risks, they gambled in favor of profits. Long-term consequences didn’t seem to be an issue to them. As a result, we have seen global temperatures steadily rise over the years. Due to this gradual change, the rise wasn’t initially noticeable. But now, we are seeing hotter days and increasingly unbearable weather. Some have been able to skirt the heat, but for those who are unhoused, working outside, or even just trying to enjoy the weather, luck has not been on their side.
Climate change is warping our daily lives. To this extent, it isn’t normal, it’s uniquely human. Those at Exxon knew their actions would lead to global warming, but fossil fuels make money, so they went with it. They’re a company, their main goal is profit. Due to the nature of our system, other companies followed in their footsteps to get a piece of the pie. On top of that, we are forced to use fossil fuels as our primary forms of transportation are powered by them, with alternatives being more expensive.
This shouldn’t be looked at as ‘just the way things are,’ either. This is driven by the system we live under, as profit pushes the drilling and consumption of the very fossil fuels that are killing our planet. On a level of policy, those with the power to change things are also being influenced by profit. “The oil and gas industry spent about $124.4 million lobbying the federal government in 2022, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of lobbying disclosures,” with the highest contributors being Koch Industries, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Chevron Corp. This was amidst a rise in gas prices due to the conflict in Ukraine, which coincided with record profits for a majority of gas companies. The systemic encouragement of burning fossil fuels has fueled the climate crisis and shuffled the consequences onto everyday people.
So, how do we cool off? The simple answer: stop drilling for, burning and using fossil fuels. The more complex answer: we work as a collective to stop the use of fossil fuels in favor of something more environmentally friendly in the short and long term. This means different people would do different things.
Some will be more suited for figuring out new ways to live. Others will be better at educating people about the faults of our system. Some will be better on the ground working to dismantle the industries that got us here in the first place. Others will be better suited to unsew the seeds of division that stop us from coming together now.
It’ll take a collective effort in which everyone uses their skills to help us get out of this mess. It won’t be easy, as it’ll take a lot of conversation and coordination, it’ll take us undoing our trauma and many will have to learn a new way of thinking about their relationship with the world. It’s absolutely necessary, though. The clock is ticking, and soon we won’t have a relationship with the world to think about.
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