Response to Blog

The article A Different Perspective by my classmate Ramy Khadra (2021) focuses on the true underlying issues of a cleaner, more sustainable future. It’s true, humans are largely to blame for climate change and such severe carbon emissions. In recent years, organizations have been pushing for cleaner, energy-conscious based households. We’ve slowly been making progress as sustainability becomes more widespread. We’ve become targeted as individuals to create change for a better global environment, but surprisingly, we should be focused more on corporations and how they affect global emissions. Large corporations are to blame for at least 75% of global emissions, meaning that humans as individuals, don’t make as much of an impact on reducing our carbon footprint even if we went completely green.

However, individuals make up these large corporations that are creating the large carbon footprint, and as Khadra (2021) states in his article, “if we want real massive change we should focus on getting large industries to change their practices and to practice more efficient and cleaner production methods in order to reduce pollution and waste”. This is extremely important because it proves that holding individuals accountable is not enough. Additionally, in the article This Statistic Changed My Entire Perspective of Climate Change by Remington Breeze (2018), it’s mentioned that “if every American did everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint, it would only reduce U.S. gross emissions by about 22%”. This is shocking as an individual, because we’ve been accustomed to believe individuals are the cause of such severe climate change, but in fact, we aren’t. Corporations are hiding behind their front and continues producing and selling products without thought — but that is the root cause of the problem.

The only way to make a change is to “educate the general population and create a more informed and aware community”, Khadra (2021) says, because we as individuals need to push a change on a larger level. With effective and informed voting policies, we can have a more impactful switch for a healthier planet. Even though we are on the right path to a more sustainable future, there is room for so much more improvement.

Resources

Breeze, R. (2018, October 29). This statistic changed my entire perspective about climate change. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://medium.com/@remingtonbreeze/this-statistic-changed-my-entire-perspective-about-climate-change-ad324fd411ac

Khadra, R. (2021, March 14). A Different Perspective. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://medium.com/a-cleaner-future/a-different-perspective-5dbcc9f13849