The cost of Inaction....

Right now we are in a time where climate change is upon us. There is no denying now that climate change is occurring, and that it is due to human actions. This is apparent all over the world with increased temperatures, water and food insecurity and population migration, to name a few.

The cost of ignoring climate change has already affected residents and the environment in BC. The Mountain Pine Beetle has had devastating impacts on forestry in BC. They are inhibited and die in cold temperatures. Since we have been experiencing such mild winters, the Pine Beetle has affected a large range of Canadian Boreal Forests. If we don’t step up and start changing the way we live, soon all our pine trees will look like the ones in the picture below. This picture was taken in August 2010 in E.C.Manning Provincial Park,BC.

Unsustainable practices all over the world have contributed to the rate of climate change today. Many countries have been devastated with environmental disasters as well as human activity induced “disasters” if you will. The picture below outlines some of the costs of these disasters.

1998 was determined to be the worst year recorded for weather related disasters (and that was over a decade ago). You’d think that we would have understood that climate change was already upon us, and that we should have began changing our ways long ago. Some of the facts are truly devastating, and yet why did I only hear about this in 2011? It truly shows that climate change was not on the list of priorities. This all happened in 1998:

·       The highest global temperature ever recorded

·       54 countries were hit by floods

·       45 countries suffered drought

·       14 million people were left homeless from floods in China

·        2/3 of  Bangladesh was underwater for several months

I could not imagine living in these conditions. It is sad, and true to know that the poorer countries are more affected by climate change. Since North Americans are not being directly affected by this climate change, why would they care? Soon enough, climate change will affect us all and North Americans will have to pay for their actions, or better said, lack of action.

A report I read concludes with the this statement

“Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21 century."

I don’t think people truly understand the devastating effects of our polluting ways. It scares me to think that people won’t understand until it’s too late. We will be faced with the greatest environmental, social and economic problems we have ever faced.

I feel it is absolutely important for my generation to start living with a smaller ecological footprint and find ways to live a more sustainable life. The David Suzuki Foundation has outlined a few ways to start taking action against climate change by cutting your carbon output, or even going carbon neutral by offsetting your carbon outputs. More information on how you can do this can be found at this website:

 http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/take-action/

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.