With all the factors that influence climate change and the perception that individual choices have marginal effect in the grand scheme of things, it’s understandable why the issue of climate change seems to be constantly swept under the rug. In northern regions where contributions to global warming have been significant, the impacts felt thus far have been minimal enabling us to falsely believe that are past transgressions won’t come back to bite us. The time for individual action alone has come and gone. Individuals still have an important vote to make every day with their food dollars but it still has a role but it must be coupled with collective action. Continued collective procrastination is almost certain to accelerate the process and likely exacerbate the impact felt. We need to get our heads out of the sand and acknowledge what is happening. The greenhouse effect is real and really not as complicated as it sounds.
So with a future of food uncertainty a very real possibility, the luxury of thinking and acting only locally is no longer acceptable. Even though it is disheartening when all this effort goes into creating policies only to see no person or country held accountable when they are not followed. We must push on. Undoubtedly collective action will be difficult because it involves cooperation, but it is necessary to make the kind of large scale changes required to reverse the current unsustainable trends the World Food System has created. If not, all this talk about change is just window dressing so we could tell our kids that we “tried”.
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“More about Global Warming.” Harden Up, Green Cross Australia, 2017, http://hardenup.org/be-aware/projection-science/the-greenhouse-effect/more-global-warming.aspx.
I agree that it is time to take much larger, more impactful steps across the globe in order to move forward with protecting our environment. Climate change certainly has devastating effects on the Earth’s resources. I think one solution that would make a large impact would be to stop deforestation. Deforestation is a huge contributor to climate change. It produces a lot of harmful fossil fuel emissions and is something that occurs all over the globe, such as in the Amazon rainforest. Another would be to start prioritizing the use of renewable, clean energy. Although it is expensive to implement, the long term benefits seem to be worth the cost. However, considering the cost factor, this would be more difficult for some parts of the world than others.