Frederick Douglass said that power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. The world hasn’t ended, but the world as we know it, certainly has.
We are all experiencing extreme weather on every continent and in every country across the globe. The failure to react to climate change is an act of betrayal towards our future generations. The predominant ‘business as usual’ attitude is our death sentence. Each day of inaction is bringing us closer and closer to a crash course: sea levels have risen, oceans have been acidified, ecosystems that we rely on for food have collapsed, and drinking water has become less available. These are real serious life-or-death issues.
All the big social movements in history called for people to be out on the streets. When people leave their homes and offices and gather out on the streets, things change. This is one of the most important fights of all time but in all honesty none of us should have to become activists for this cause. One would expect that as soon as scientists said that the worse possible thing on earth is happening now, that alone would have been enough to push our systems into action. Yet the few that are genuinely concerned had to resort to organizing what might have been the largest march in history in order to get people to react.
For over 150 years, scientists have known that the changes in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were going to affect the planetary energy balance. They proved that this gas was a natural thermostat that helped set our planet’s temperature. People didn’t pay much attention to any of those warnings and predictions because everybody was too busy figuring out new ways to burn fossil fuel. Since the Industrial Revolution the levels of carbon dioxide have been rising consistently. The pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was of 280 ppm. Today this is up to 400. This shows that we’re pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a speed never seen before.
But behind the environmental problem caused by carbon pollution is a political problem. Bribery, blackmail, and even threats have been used to avoid change.