The headlines of many newspapers in recent weeks have revealed the consensus among scientists around the world: humanity is undeniably involved in growing temperature and environmental changes.
Without belittling the efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group consisting of more than 113 countries and nearly 3,000 international delegates, was a conference really needed to prove this point?
With increasing dependence on mobility and vehicles, SUVs get bigger and are filled with unnecessary technological services; yet, gas mileage still dwindles as the price of oil climbs. Companies develop new products that promote convenience, but are often single-use items that are thrown away without hesitation.
Face it: people are the single greatest contributors to the global warming crisis.
It still remains shocking that politicians try to pass off dramatic environmental situations as a partisan issue. Some politicians even criticized “An Inconvenient Truth” as just a way for Al Gore to boost his political platform and a possible run for the White House.
After the release of the IPCC findings on the human-global warming connection, “Democratic lawmakers quickly fired off a round of news releases using the report to bolster a fresh flock of proposed bills aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases,” according to The New York Times.
The article continues that Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., “called the idea of dangerous human-driven warming a hoax” and issued a release stating that the IPCC report was simply “a political document.”
Which is worse: using the environment to garner votes or denial of an entire, well-documented crisis because it is seen as political?
The last IPCC report, published in 2001, shows that humans were “likely” to be responsible for changes in climate, and the link between man and these changes created at 66 percent correlation. As of now, the report states that people are more than 90 percent, or “very likely,” associated with contributions to global warming (i.e. the use and burning of fossil fuels).
It is embarrassing to see politicians trying to scapegoat their opposition for a transcultural, transcontinental disaster. The U.S. has become too polarized in recent years and many Americans differentiate issues based on liberal or conservative.
If the IPCC conference in Paris proved anything is that politicians and citizens need to work together to combat and control the rate at which global warming occurs. There is no use in attributing global warming to a political preference; we all have a hand in the current environmental situation and we should all take responsibility for the future of our world.
As students, we need to encourage and promote grassroots efforts to combat global warming in any way possible. Politicians worldwide need to put the infighting aside and focus on something that affects all people.
We also need to make politicians, the people we vote for, know that this is a relevant, bi-partisan issue that deserves the utmost attention.
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