I think that when the topic of climate change is raised the majority of people die a little bit inside! Although we all have very different, and very strong opinions about climate change, the thought of discussing those views and listening to others for the hundredth time has become quite a daunting thought.
I will always remember when I was in year 11 ant school and they made my entire year group watch An Inconvenient Truth. As you may already be aware, this film is over an hour and a half long. Research has shown that students are only able to focus fully for 45 minutes, so needless to say the majority of students were bored mindless watching this film; and a girl two rows in front of me was actually asleep for the majority of it!
I have to say that I was possibly one of the only students who was fascinated by Al Gore and his hard hitting “truths”. I could not believe that my peers we so uninterested in such a serious issue which is going to affect all of us whether we believe it or not. I kept thinking, how can these people be so small minded that they don’t care about the planet?
Until that point in my life I had assumed that everyone was as concerned about climate changed as I was. I thought it impossible to think that anyone in their right mind would be ignoring the problem. This was four years ago, and since then I have come across more and more people who genuinely couldn’t care less.
We have all heard the theories that climate change is a huge conspiracy, Al Gore is a mad man, and that it is a completely natural occurrence. Perhaps one of the most shocking views I have heard about climate change came from my boss. He stated, hand on heart that:
“Climate change is something Al Gore invented to keep the world busy, so he can carry on stealing cigarettes.”
This comment left me absolutely speechless, and I have no doubt that it will stick with me for the rest of my life. Honestly what can you say to someone who thinks that Al Gore is a cigarette thief?! I think that my boss knew that Al Gore grew up on a tobacco farm, and then used that small amount of knowledge to come to a ridiculous conclusion. This, of course, is an extreme example of ignorance, but I think that it shows how people form opinions based on the very little they know about a particular subject, and climate change is no exception to this.
If I were to go around telling everyone about brain surgery, I think that people who be very quick to dismiss what I have said for the obvious reason that I am not a brain surgeon. I find it impossible to believe that 100% of the population are scientists or geographers, or even that they have thoroughly researched climate change in great depth. And yet, everyone has an opinion about climate change and we readily listen to each other’s views without ever stopping to think – “actually what does this person really know about climate change?”
Climate change is something which is going to affect the entire planet, no matter what reason we believe caused it. I find it incredible that with knowledge of an imminent disaster, there are so many people who are still refusing to do anything to prevent it. Meanwhile, there are thousands and thousands of people who are willing to believe that the world is going to end December 21st 2012! How can people believe this when there is absolutely no evidence to support it, meanwhile dismissing the hundreds of scientific data about climate change?
Perhaps it is true that such extreme climate change is something which occurs naturally every X amount of years. I have heard a number of people using the ice age as an example of when this natural climate change has happened before. This may well be true, but I think that these people are ignoring the small fact that during the ice age almost nothing survived through it! So in all honesty, the possible fact that this is a natural event offers little comfort to me!
Whether it is a natural or man-made disaster, the fact still remains that it is going to be a disaster. Since 2000, there have been 2 major tsunamis, 2 devastating hurricanes to hit America alone and 14 earthquakes to reach 8 or 9 on the Richter scale (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php). These are only a few disasters which have been directly linked to climate change; surely this is enough evidence to prove the desperate need to do something about climate change?
I think that these disasters are horrifying reminders of the impact that climate change is already having on our planet. In November 2009 the BBC took a climate change poll, asking 1001 people whether they believe that climate change is happening. In November of 2009, 75% of those asked said that yes, they did believe climate change was happening. The poll was taken again in February 2010, and 83% of those questioned then agreed that climate change is happening. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_02_10climatechange.pdf)
These statistics clearly show that there was an 8% increase in the space of 3 months. Theoretically, if there continued to be an 8% increase every 3 months of people who believe that climate change was happening, then by now 95% of people questioned will agree that climate change exists.
This is a staggeringly large percentage of people and proves that people, in the UK at least, are slowly beginning to accept climate change. So does this mean that more people will start recycling and switching to renewable sources of energy? For the sake of the planet, I certainly hope so.
Now is a time to make a difference; a difference that the world desperately needs.
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