I could be wrong, but thus far evidence suggests that precious few of us are willing to change our lifestyles in an effort to undo the environmental damage we are causing. The response from most people to the idea of adding carbon taxes to the cost of the petrol, electricity and plastics – which are all derived from fossil fuels – has been decidedly negative so far.
While I’m not happy about paying more for these things either, I also know that it is both selfish and irresponsible for me to continue to advocate getting a free pass for my CO2 emissions when I know what harm is being done to our global environment.
Most people are unwilling to face up to the fact that by not paying for the environmental costs of their continued use of fossil fuels today, their children and grandchildren will end up paying much more to cope with the negative consequences of climate change in the future. How can this be considered anything but selfish and irresponsible?
We have already begun to experience the negative consequences of a warming world. More intense storms and droughts have led to a rise in deaths caused by floods or starvation in many parts of the world. Rising sea levels have also seen increased erosion of coastal areas, and even made some tropical islands uninhabitable. Furthermore, the melting of permafrost in the northern tundra regions has forced people there to relocate, and disrupted the life cycles of the native wildlife they depend on for their survival.
Our governments have already begun to foot the bill for our unfettered use of fossil fuels and deforestation. But the current costs of coping with climate change are only a small fraction of what our children will have to pay. If we expect them to act responsibly and protect the global environment, then we must begin by examining the kind of example we’re setting.
Unfortunately, what we’ve shown our children so far is that we are only willing to take baby steps towards addressing the problem of global warming. Many of us do in fact turn down our thermostats or turn off our lights to conserve energy.
Some of us have purchased more fuel-efficient cars and energy-efficient appliances, while others have even gone so far as to install solar panels to provide power for their homes or businesses. I applaud such measures, but the truth is that they usually pay for themselves within a matter of months or years, and will mean little in the long term.
Some people also like to point out the increase in the use of bio-fuels in our cars. But this too is a relatively easy change to implement, since our car engines don’t have to be adapted to run on a blend of ethanol and conventional petrol.
More importantly here, we have discovered that the increased use of bio-fuels has not only resulted in increased prices for our food supplies, but has also led to an increase in CO2 emissions as well. That’s because we’ve cut down forests to clear land for bio-fuel crops like corn, palm oil, sugarcane or soybeans, and released more CO2 into the atmosphere than if we left those forests alone.
Yes, using food crops to produce atmosphere-friendly fuel did sound like an easy way to help address global warming. But when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
The reality of the steps we’ve taken to address global warming is that few of them have required us to really change our energy-wasting lifestyles.
Charles Laffiteau is a lifelong US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is currently pursuing a PhD in International Relations at DCU with a focus on environmental policy
