The Magnum Opera of history are conflicts between opposing factions: hierarchy and equality, religion and atheism – and now, environment and economy. The coming moments are those that go into children’s history books. If it goes wrong, people will look back and say, “well, that’s what went wrong.”
For many environmentalists, the ideal goal of environmental protection is to recover the adverse effects caused by human activity, such as turning to net afforestation to dampen biodiversity loss due to deforestation.
Conversely, economists all over the world hope to achieve stable economic growth which requires the extraction and use of natural resources, which can often contradict the environmentalist interests.
The Conference of Parties is an annual United Nations climate summit discussing plans and results of climate action. The most recent COP27 let many environmentalists down, though some remain hopeful.
This is partially due to the food and energy shortage in many developed and emerging economies resultant of the military escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022, destabilizing prices of necessities and shaking.
Despite all the conflict, few remain hopeful.
“This is our only hope,” says environmentalist geography teacher Mr. Ben Green. “it’s only through international agreements that we’re going to initiate changes.”
According to Mr. Green, developed countries have contributed to the enhanced greenhouse effect the most, yet as multiple recent investigations revealed, developing countries have experienced unmerited suffering. “It’s not only their interest, but it’s our responsibility.”
The Least Developed Countries’ Fund, which exclusively funds sustainable development, is the main official policy to combat the problem. That said, nations have never successfully contributed $100 billion to climate action every year as promised.
However, some economists argue that the development of emerging economies like India requires fossil fuels, as they do not have enough technology to supply all energy sustainably.
In response, Mr. Green theorizes the existence of a snowball effect: attempts to innovate renewable energy sources increasingly raise the potential of sustainable development.
“Maybe our problem is that other more acute issues supersede this underlying climate issue which will become more and more acute as time goes on,” he suggests.
As a long-term geography teacher at a secondary school, Mr. Green noticed that young people are generally more inwardly focused than concerned with global events. Mr. Green currently runs a Global Citizenship for young students at his school, aiming to raise awareness of global issues such as environmental protection.
For him, global awareness plays a vital role in environmental protection. “you don’t see the acute nature of it until you get a major drought or a major flood that you go, ‘oh’”.
He explains adults often feel “bogged down” in immediate financial matters, whereas young people have “freedom of expression and excitement that’s required to initiate change.” Mr. Green remains “cautiously optimistic” regarding the future of the environment.
“If you feel empowered to, go and do something!”
