What Will It Take?

Jenna’s post about the musical West Side Story got me thinking about what compels a person to act, what will it require to get people to take climate change seriously? I think the sad truth is that people must experience for themselves, first hand, the devastation that goes along with rapid climate change before they are moved enough to act, such as being a victim of a natural disaster or having an entire harvest wiped out. But unfortunately, the people that are harmed the most by these disasters are the people without the resources to defend themselves- lower income people. The poor are the ones that will feel the effects of climate change first and worst- subsistence farmers have already been hit extremely hard and as a result are struggling to feed themselves and are slipping into poverty. The people and countries that experience such devastation must worry about going to bed hungry; they simply don’t have the resources to worry about cleaner, more efficient energy sources. The U.S. on the other hand is the most powerful country on earth, and we have yet to make any substantial commitment to solving the environmental issues the world is facing. I think a large part of why we have yet to act is because we haven’t, as a nation, experienced hunger or thirst, the lack of housing etc. We have a safety net of wealth to fall back on and so we see no need to act. A historical analogy that could be applied to this situation is during times of war, when entire countries are ravaged and starving, the elite rulers are living comfortably and eating feasts. The undeveloped nations of the world are suffering because of the pollution we are putting out, yet we have no desire to act because we are living as comfortably as we always have. Yes, the U.S. has experienced natural disasters, but they haven’t been so devastating as to prevent people from meeting their basic needs, and yes they affected many people, but the proportion of people that have been affected is relatively small when compared to the population of the U.S. In my opinion, until the majority of the U.S. starts to feel the effects of global warming, and the negative effects start creeping up to the upper-middle class and the wealthy, people won’t be compelled to act in significant ways. A huge, and vital aspect of a Utopia, I feel, is compassion for others, the well being of the community and the people must come before immediate pleasures, and so we must find a way to alter people’s mindsets without letting it get to the point where everyone is suffering. We must compel people to act before we as a nation have let the problem get so bad that it is irreversible.