Skip to main content

Your Role in Climate Change

 

David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg
Over the past couple of years, our environment has become more sharply into focus: activists like Greta Thunberg and Sir David Attenborough are opening our eyes to the pressures our planet faces. With the US finally re-joining the Paris Climate agreement, prehaps now is the time to revaluate the impact of Climate Change and explore more earnestly the technologies that will change our future.

 

While the biggest changes must come from governments and corporations (Coco-cola and Nestle are the worst culprits), we can all still do our bit and an important weapon against this is education. Since the 1980s, fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil have fuelled climate change denial which has a big impact on our ability to move green proposals forward. Therefore, it’s critical that we brush up on our climate facts and help our loved ones make positive steps to a cleaner future. The BBC are releasing a new campaign titled ‘Our Planet Matters’ where, for the next year, special programmes will be shown to help educate the nation on this issue.

 


So what can you do? Becoming ‘eco-friendly’ is a trend that’s gaining popularity on social media platforms and, though this promises a greener mentality within society, we must be wary of companies trying to cash in on our planet.


‘Green washing’ is when companies falsely mislead consumers into believing their products are environmentally friendly. This is done by using organic colours like green and brown and using catchphrases like ‘eco’, ‘natural’ or ‘earth friendly’.
Use reusable straws instead of plastic.
When investing in a new product, take time to research the company’s climate pledge and see if they’re really meeting the standards. If possible, by local to reduce the product’s carbon footprint. It may also pay off to buy more expensive but higher quality items that you’re less likely to replace. That said, the worst thing you can do is buy something you’ll never use and will ultimately end up in the bin.

We can see for ourselves the impact of Climate Change. Sea levels are rising, our weather is becoming more extreme and mass extinctions are currently taking place. At the end of the day, we must decide what we want for this planet and make active steps towards a better future. It’s not too late. Yet.

UN: 'Yes, Climate Change is Driving Wild Fires.'

Comments

  1. David Attenborough is incredible though. Great ending to the blog post too! Direct address was very convincing and I now feel strangely motivated.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Investigating Black Holes - The 2020 Nobel Prize Winners

 To earn my place at the University of Leeds I have been asked to complete an assignment on the science and importance of a Nobel Prize discovery. It was daunting at first trying to attempt this piece of work (the three page project brief was enough to make me eyes water) and yet I soon enjoyed picking out my articles, reading them then turning my shorthand attempts into this essay. Happy reading! Black holes have captured the public’s imagination and inspired a wave of Sci-fi science: from Interstellar to Doctor Who, the black hole is deemed as key to human time travel through the warping of space time. Despite seeming fantastical, the 2020 Physics Nobel Prize winners Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez could bring us a step closer to this improbable reality and provides further evidence for Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. As a science geek myself, I’m fascinated by the future of space and having the opportunity to further delve into its discoveries was not one to be missed. Th

Science Advent Calendar 2020

With Christmas fast approaching, what better way to keep the conversation going at Christmas dinner than some strange and interesting facts? To count down the days until Santa arrives check in here to find your daily science facts. 1st December  Christmas Tree at NYC Rockefeller Centre   Each year, 25 to 30 million trees are sold in the US alone making it a once-a-year billion dollar industry. But what affect does this have on our environment? On average, each tree will absorb 22kg of CO₂ per year so, as fir trees generally grow for 7-10 years, your Christmas tree will have absorbed 154kg of CO₂ in it's life time. That makes the total amount of CO₂ absorbed by the US Christmas industry 4.62 billion kilograms of CO₂! It's not all good news though. Whatever amount of CO₂ a tree has absorbed in it's lifetime is released back into the environment once its been chopped down and starts to decay. Therefore, to make use of all that carbon, compost your old tree and use its nutri