The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
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You have been inundated with propaganda about climate change for most of your life, I would venture to say. I don’t mean that it isn’t happening because it very much is. I mean that there exists propaganda that attempts to obfuscate the true culprits of this accelerated destruction of our planet.
I’ll lay out the facts up front: climate change is happening and it’s an existential crisis. I don’t want to sound like an alarmist (even though that’s what we need), but have you noticed how the seasons are getting far more extreme than the previous year, and every year? The winters are getting colder, and the summers are getting warmer. You might be thinking that you can handle it. I promise you that you can not handle this kind of extreme temperature fluctuation.
In addition to the general temperature becoming harsher and more inhospitable, the world’s weather formations are getting more and more extreme. The extreme temperatures are part of what contributed to the devastating wildfires in Australia in 2020 and California in 2021. The Earth was literally burning and there are people who still have the audacity to still deny that climate change is a problem that needs to be tackled.
The real issue of climate change is about whom it affects most severely. The severity of climate change’s danger is based on a multitude of factors but not the least of which is economic standing. You might ask how something that accelerates climate-related disaster can affect people with less money harsher. The most obvious factor is that people who have less money have less money to spend on things that help them weather the elements and this problem is only compounded if they don’t have a car. Most people don’t have the luxury of just not going to work if they don’t have transportation. People who are desperate because of harsh capitalism will get to work on foot and in the fast-approaching future, this could be a death sentence for some people. Additionally, as the seasons get more extreme, fresh water and other consumable items will become scarcer and scarcer and by extension, will become far more expensive. It’s really a question of economics as well as climate science.
Those that climate change affects least severely are those who do not need to worry about the potential scarcity of items. They are those that are doing the most damage to our planet by gobbling up resources in an unsustainable way and buying out the political process to make sure that this system we have is the one that stays. They are the ones who will be able to purchase lavish bunkers underground with anything they could ever want when their mansions crumble under the harsh heat, battering wind, and flooding coastlines.
This is a bleak outlook, I’m aware, but the best thing you can do to help combat climate change is never defend billionaires because they do not care about you at all, and hold people in positions of power accountable. Don’t let them dismiss you just because you are raising awareness for the issue that’s going to destroy your community if we can’t get the climate crisis under control.
