The Problem Is Not The Individual

When­ever you look at the news, go on social media or just go to the super­mar­ket cli­ma­te chan­ge is always a sub­ject that is prio­ri­ti­sed. It’s cau­sed by many dif­fe­rent fac­tors, for exam­p­le green house gases in the atmo­sphe­re, defo­re­sta­ti­on, rice cul­ti­va­ti­on and many other human activities.

We always hear tips on how to mini­mi­ze our eco­no­mic foot­print and how to save the envi­ron­ment by reu­sing and recy­cling things. But how much of a dif­fe­rence does it all make?

It is all about the money and reputation

Late­ly the­re has been more and more con­ver­sa­ti­ons about how soon cli­ma­te chan­ge will be irrever­si­ble, but as we’­re living while the chan­ge is hap­pe­ning, the­re are­n’t any num­bers which are one hundred per­cent defi­ni­te. The num­bers given, ran­ge from five to ele­ven years. By then any chan­ge won’t make a dif­fe­rence any­mo­re. The­se num­bers have cau­sed panic and fear of what is about to hap­pen and one natu­ral­ly asks ones­elf how one can pre­vent this crisis.

The pro­blem is that even though we as socie­ty can chan­ge a lot most of the power and fault lies in big com­pa­nies. Seven­ty-one per­cent, to be exact, of emis­si­ons are fault of a total of nine­ty to one hundred com­pa­nies. This means that the­se indi­vi­du­al com­pa­nies are respon­si­ble for almost three quar­ters of all glo­bal emis­si­ons. It is almost cra­zy to think that our poli­ti­cal sys­tems sup­port them, but they do. The­se com­pa­nies, as for exam­p­le Shell, bene­fit from the capi­ta­li­stic sys­tem and do ever­y­thing to main­tain it by „dona­ting” mil­li­ons to law­ma­kers, who will make sure the­se com­pa­nies will stay in power and will keep being able to earn bil­li­ons while also des­troy­ing our planet.

Political change for lasting climate change

As an indi­vi­du­al it is important to make sure that you don’t keep the heat on while having an open win­dow, to not eat as much meat, to not eat toma­toes from Spain in Janu­ary, to not use as much pla­s­tic and to not tra­vel as much with cars, pla­nes and big crui­se ships. We have to all be con­scious and think of the future.

But it is also important to know that a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of human-rela­ted green­house gas emis­si­ons are cau­sed by big com­pa­nies. And that the­se com­pa­nies are being sup­port­ed by our govern­ment, which still isn’t up to date with new science.

„To tru­ly make a chan­ge it is important to force poli­ti­cal change!“

Maxi­ne Katz, die Autorin

To tru­ly make a chan­ge it is important to force poli­ti­cal chan­ge, so that new poli­ci­es regar­ding big com­pa­nies will be deve­lo­ped to make sure that this cli­ma­te cri­sis can be pre­ven­ted, stop­ped or at least haltered.