Geography Newsletter, written by our members

Last week in geography club, we had a group discussion about who is responsible for climate change. This passage was written by one of our members, Carmen (Year 8)
, and edited by Kirin (Year 8). Ideas were contributed by all members including Dhaani (Year 7).

The person responsible should surely fix it right? Well then, who is responsible for creating it? That is a hard question to answer as there are many factors that come into play and to pinpoint it on a specific person is very difficult. Instead, there are certain communities and groups of people that are contributing more to climate change than others. For example, companies can be responsible for exacerbating climate change as they typically sell material or objects made in factories which is also easier to sell in bulk. However, factories often use things like oil and fossil fuels for their manufacturing machinery which releases greenhouse gases and in turn, contributes to air pollution. According to a study done by the CBO, 12% of the USA’s greenhouse gases came from factories emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are made from burning fossil fuels which are used for energy.

Who is responsible for fixing it then? There are multiple sides to this argument as the main contributors –such as companies or meat eaters– can be responsible as they caused some of the problems. However, there is another side to this in which the people who are on the ‘receiving’ side should fix climate change. This can be shown through an example. The companies make profit off their products which are made in factories which cause air pollution, but the consumers are the ones who buy the products making the companies produce more and thus pollute the air. Without the consumers buying the products, the companies would eventually stop manufacturing and will at least stop releasing greenhouse gases into the air. This can somewhat be described as a vicious cycle. However, the companies choose to listen and contribute to what the consumers want which if they do, they can make more money. This can make them seem responsible as they are choosing to listen to the consumers but one counter-active part on this, the people in the companies want money. Big shock, right?

To conclude, it is hard to say exactly who is responsible for making climate change worse. However, what we can do is change our actions on a local scale such as eating less meat and not buying products unless they are essential. Combatting climate change is a joint effort and is definitely not down to one person.