If you don’t accept the reality of human-induced climate change you are at best ignorant or, at worst, highly dangerous.
Climate change sceptics, on a whole, now base their arguments on uncertainty as to the consequences of climate change rather than its existence. To be sure, our modelling of the future contains inaccuracies and uncertainties as one would expect with an issue of this complexity, but the fact of the matter is that climate change is real, climate change is happening and climate change (and everything that stems from it) will probably be the single most important issue in our lifetimes.
As students at Oxford we love to debate, we love conspiracy, we love to argue for arguments sake in an intellectual playground. However, as much as I view debating as an important and honourable pursuit, when it comes to climate change it is high time to take action.
I have to agree with (God forbid) Rupert Murdoch who wrote: ‘Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction.’ Quite simply inaction is not an option – the climate will not wait for our computer models to improve.
So what can we do? Are we too small and insignificant to actually make any difference? I could start throwing in names like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi to show that we can change the world. However, I want to be less abstract and suggest what each one of us can, and should, be doing.
The most important thing we can do is to engage politically – simply writing to you MP gives them more power and leverage. Important decisions are being made at local, national and global levels of government and some of you will be making these decisions somewhere down the line.
As individuals too we must do our bit to reduce our carbon consumption. Think seriously about where you can cut down your energy usage – is the laptop on standby? Do you need central heating with the window open? Why boil water for five cups when you’re only making one? It’s quite simple really: we just need to start to think twice and become less wasteful!
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank
