We Didn’t Start the Fire!
I recently began to read Common Wealth by Jeffery Sachs, the director of Columbia University’s The Earth Institute. In this book, Sachs speaks of the impact of a rising global population on our environment. Reading it on the train home from work, a specific line caught my eye and left me wondering:
“Man-made climate change is not a sin of humanity, or even a result we could have easily predicted and avoided; it is, rather, an accident of chemistry, specifically, the accident that carbon dioxide has greenhouse climate effects.”
This is the first time that I had ever seen someone, anyone, take the blame of climate change off of humans, and merely call it an accident. Is this an extreme interpretation? Probably. However, I realized that Sachs is right, who would have thought almost 200 years ago, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that such economic boom would lead to environmental bust?
Can we, as a present population, be responsible for the faulty mistakes of our ancestors? The 21st century generation didn’t invent this technology. We were not the ones who ignored Rachel Carson’s warnings. Our grandparents were
distracted with wars instead of listening to the words of Garrett Hardin. If they ignored it, therefore prolonging the problem, why is all the blame being placed on Generations Baby Boom, X, and Y? While we in the 21st century did not invent the use of fossil fuels as an energy source – the accidental consequence being that its carbon dioxide emissions would warm the globe – we are the generation in which its impacts can no longer be ignored. The developed nations, the ones which have the greatest bearings on the global environment, are educated and economically able to catalyze the necessary changes.
Just as the concept of sustainable development allows us to meet the needs of our grandchildren, we must accept (and often appreciate) the technological inventions of our grandparents. Nonetheless, we must use embody the knowledge of our generation – we are heating the planet and altering global ecosystems. This earth belongs to humans past, present, and future: The heavens belong to God, but the earth God gave to humans (Psalms 115). And while climate change is not a sin of humanity, it is a sin to ignore and inflate it. The blame of the “accident” cannot be put on any one generation, but on a species as a whole
“Man-made climate change is not a sin of humanity, or even a result we could have easily predicted and avoided; it is, rather, an accident of chemistry, specifically, the accident that carbon dioxide has greenhouse climate effects.”
This is the first time that I had ever seen someone, anyone, take the blame of climate change off of humans, and merely call it an accident. Is this an extreme interpretation? Probably. However, I realized that Sachs is right, who would have thought almost 200 years ago, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that such economic boom would lead to environmental bust?
Can we, as a present population, be responsible for the faulty mistakes of our ancestors? The 21st century generation didn’t invent this technology. We were not the ones who ignored Rachel Carson’s warnings. Our grandparents were
distracted with wars instead of listening to the words of Garrett Hardin. If they ignored it, therefore prolonging the problem, why is all the blame being placed on Generations Baby Boom, X, and Y? While we in the 21st century did not invent the use of fossil fuels as an energy source – the accidental consequence being that its carbon dioxide emissions would warm the globe – we are the generation in which its impacts can no longer be ignored. The developed nations, the ones which have the greatest bearings on the global environment, are educated and economically able to catalyze the necessary changes.Just as the concept of sustainable development allows us to meet the needs of our grandchildren, we must accept (and often appreciate) the technological inventions of our grandparents. Nonetheless, we must use embody the knowledge of our generation – we are heating the planet and altering global ecosystems. This earth belongs to humans past, present, and future: The heavens belong to God, but the earth God gave to humans (Psalms 115). And while climate change is not a sin of humanity, it is a sin to ignore and inflate it. The blame of the “accident” cannot be put on any one generation, but on a species as a whole
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