OUR PLANET - OUR RESPONSIBILITY - HOW FAR WOULD WE GO?

By Pranay Chawla

Climate change is becoming more and more serious, and many people are ignoring the dangers it brings. Only a small proportion of people are taking action against climate change. Some of these have become famous due to protesting against what they perceive as a lack of action by governments against global warming.

Some of these people include Xiye Bastida, Isra Hirisi and Autumn Peltier – three teenage activists who are an example of the growing trend of young people becoming involved in these protests. Young activists like these are becoming more and more influential, as can be seen with sixteen of them taking part in the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September this year. Another person doing the same thing against governments is Greta Thunberg, who has become world-famous due to her actions at the age of sixteen. Many other people are raising government’s awareness of the rapidly worsening situation, such as Robert Redford, John Paul Jose and Luisa Neubauer, all of whom are taking action in many ways, such as starting rallies or providing commentary on the environmental crisis. Many of these people are from the US, but there are also activists from many countries in Europe, as well as Asia and Africa.

But what are these activists actually campaigning for? Well, we can start by making small contributions - using renewable energy - solar, hydro and wind power. Renewable energy is also quite cheap, so we can save money if we use it. Another way of reducing our carbon footprint is eating less beef. This means there is less demand for beef, and therefore reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced due to the raising of cattle for slaughter. Finally, we can use fewer cars by simply car-sharing, taking public transport or cycling. If you are going on holiday, how about using a ferry, which produces less pollution than planes.

If we do not take action now the whole future of the planet is at stake. Many people are doing massive things, but we needn’t start on such a large scale. Just by doing some small things – from eating less beef to changing where we get our electricity from – we could help prevent global warming. But don’t wait until tomorrow – time is running out for the planet we call home, and we need to act now.