On Wednesday, Mr. Siperstein asked our class to answer a few questions about climate change in our journals. Those questions were, “Why don’t people care about climate change? Or if they do care, why don’t they act?”
I found this activity to be especially interesting because this is a topic I think about continuously. Being a person that knew hardly anything about climate change before taking this class, I think it’s safe to say that I can answer these questions from first-hand experience. Now, I don’t think the issue is that people don’t care about climate change. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I would argue that most people not only care about the issue, but are also at least somewhat scared about the negative effects climate change could have on our society. However, I don’t think people know enough about climate change and its repercussions to realize just how serious of an issue it really is. As a result, they probably don’t think there’s anything they could really even do to help.
Now, obviously I can’t sit here and claim that all of these assumptions are true, but as I said before I’ve decided to base my assumptions off of my own personal experience with the matter.
Anyway, on top of not understanding the severity of this issue and the need for a change, I think there are several other reasons why people don’t act towards resolving this issue. The main issue though, is that people don’t know what to even do. This is the main reason why I myself don’t act upon this issue. I definitely want to do my part in making a positive change, but I really have no clue about how I could get involved. I don’t even know where to begin! I’m assuming many other people probably feel this same way, so I decided to do some research about how to get involved.
Upon my research, I discovered a number of different ways to get involved, even right here in Eugene! The University of Oregon has a group called The Tribal Climate Change Project, and the city of Eugene there is a campaign called Youth Climate Action Now (YouCAN). The groups have done and are continuing to do some amazing things locally, and both would be great place for one to start getting involved.
While these groups are definitely very positive and beneficial, not all people are looking to get involved in that exact way. I know for me personally, I’d be lying if I said I was planning on joining one of these groups. That is why I decided to look up some alternative ways that people can make a change, but this time in a way that can be incorporated into someone’s daily routine.
The steps you can take are all quite simple actually, and one website even laid it all out as “Top 10 Ways You Can Stop Climate Change.” You can try walking or biking places more often instead of always taking a car. And when you do take a car, you can carpool. You can change your light bulbs to compact fluorescents or LEDs. You can eat at least one meet-free meal a day, and instead load up on more fruits and veggies. You can use a reusable water bottle instead of so many plastic ones.
Simple changes like these can make all the difference, and they aren’t even hard to do! If each one of us just made some of these simple changes, our combined efforts would affect the issue of climate change dramatically. These activities don’t require a lot of effort, and by doing them you will be doing your part in helping the environment. So, what’re you waiting for? Let’s start making a change!
I definetly agree on your point that even when people know about climate change they don’t act because they are not sure what to do. As a science major I hear about the changing climate all the time but have never known on a personal level what to do. As you have said, it is the small actions that make a large difference when it comes to climate change and our impact.
I agree with you that the problem isn’t that people don’t care, but rather that people do care but for a variety of other reasons, that “caring” is not put to good use or is squashed by social norms and various other emotions. In fact, there is a professor and leading climate change researcher here at the UO — Kari Norgaard — who is pursuing that same theory in her work: http://vimeo.com/85591316
I also agree that there are many small actions that an individual can take. But I think it might also useful to ask: why do individuals not want to get involved in groups or larger social movements, especially when those groups or movements can accomplish changes (like keeping a pipeline from getting built, shutting down a dirty coal powerplant, getting new legislation enacted, etc) that dwarf any kind of change that one individual can make alone? That is, do you think there things about our modern society and the culture we live in that make it hard for people to want to get involved? I wonder why we — myself included — prefer to change the way we consume, rather than change the way we are involved civically?
I totally agree with where you’re coming from and I really like the questions you’ve brought up! It is definitely interesting to think about our modern society in terms of what makes it hard for people to want to get involved. I’m not exactly sure why individuals do not want to get involved in groups or larger social movements, but I’m assuming it has something to do with a convenience factor. Joining groups such as the ones I mentioned in my post not only require a lot of time, but they require individuals to go out of their way in their already busy lives. In our society today, people always seem to be searching for the easiest solution and the fastest results. The issue of climate change however, can provide neither of those things. When working to help the issue of climate change, people need to think about the bigger picture and the solution in the long run, and I just think that is something the people of our society today ultimately struggle with. The question is, what can we as individuals do to help alleviate this problem? Do we need to strive to change our entire mindsets? Or is there a more simple, straightforward way of going about this issue?
My class at Temple University is studying the same genre of literature (cli-fi) as this class. I wanted to present a question to this class with the hope of inspiring a spirited, good natured debate in relation to your post as to what individuals can do to foster a more productive attentiveness to the increasing problem of climate change. Recently I emailed Dan Bloom and presented this question to him, as I do to you all now:
When theorizing future global warming and climate change in the hopes to bring about environmental awareness and conservationism, I assert students must be engaged early, at the elementary and middle school age range, to foster an interest in any subject matter and to build intellectual curiosity; with this in mind, how do you create an educational study methodology to build an interest in ecology, environmentalism, weatherization, global warming and climate change for this age group?
Dennis — thanks for the reply and for posing such an important question. I think the key for students in the elementary school range (or even younger) is to encourage them to develop an interest and love in the more-than-human world as a way of establishing the building blocks of what Mitchell Tomashow has called “ecological identity”– a way of seeing and feeling about oneself that acknowledges interdependence with more than human world; not just a different abstract model of how the world is constituted but also a visceral, emotional engagement with that world. This kind of education — based in experiential learning (like farming, fieldwork, etc) — can then be a base for learning about the sometimes more abstract issue of climate change in middle and high school. Overall though, in all stages of learning, I think the most important approaches for learning about climate change come not just from the sciences, but from the humanities: how to think about self and others, how to read one’s world (and the texts one encounters) critically, how to consider ethical issues, etc.
I think there was another threaded post on this blog specifically about educating young students — you might want to check that out.
Thanks for contributing!
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