Climate change has been on the world’s political agenda for at least fifty years—ever since scientist Gordon Dobson first began to measure carbon emissions back in 1956. If one disregards various alarmist exaggerations, the situation has been more or less clear from the start and the solution has been self-evident. However, the message has been remarkably slow in coming across.
This slowness manifests itself in many ways: despite overwhelming scientific consensus, the world continues to act as if climate awareness is just another trend—here today, gone tomorrow. Factories continue to spew out pollutions, politicians continue to discredit scientists and research projects on climate change, and ordinary people continue to turn a blind eye while consumer frenzy continues to spin out of control. Books, CDs, DVDs, MP3 players, iPods, clothes, shoes, accessories, cars, stereo decks, boats, houses, vacations… The list is endless. In the end, our desire to keep up with the Joneses might well be the end of the very lifestyle we seek to perpetuate.
In the meantime, who is to blame for this late awakening? Some travellers interviewed at an airport a few months ago said that they ‘booked this flight a year ago—long before the climate started changing’. This level of ignorance, whether self-imposed or otherwise, is perhaps not surprising. But where does it come from? Your third blog assignment is to try to explain why you think this realisation has been so slow in coming.
The deadline for this assignment is Sunday, 03 May.
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