The earth’s rising temperatures will be catastrophic unless governments and global citizens step up and become more sustainable. Variety staffer Isabella Westrich discusses this topic through a satire written from the point of view of someone who just wants to live in the moment. Illustration by Eleanor Robinson
The world is facing an impending climate crisis. But having breathable air in the future would mean inconveniencing ourselves today… ugh.
By this point, we all know about climate change. Enough research has been done that we know there will be consequences– in fact, we’re already starting to feel them now.
Worse weather conditions, seventy degree winters. You know… the usual.
However, even though we have a limited time to act before climate change is completely irreversible, it isn’t that bad yet– and any measures we take to slow rising temperatures would cost money, time and effort. This seems like an awfully high price for a little thing like the future.
As climate change continues, inconvenient conditions like rising temperatures, heatwaves and droughts will become way more common. Luckily we’ll have heavy and irregular precipitation, flooding and hurricanes to balance us out. Who doesn’t love tsunamis?
Any measures we take to slow rising temperatures would cost money, time and effort. Which seems like an awfully high price for a little thing like the future.
Of course, it will get harder to breathe outside as air quality worsens. Food and water will become scarcer. Heck, climate change will even accelerate us into the sixth great extinction. But at least production costs will stay low.
That is, until the effects of climate change cause the economy to collapse.
There are things we could do to help. Renewable energy sources are available; governments would just have to– get this– put money and effort into developing them. Ha! Can you imagine? That would mean getting rid of a problem that won’t even wreck the world for another 50 years!
Biodiversity could be preserved– land would just have to be protected and not used for more profitable purposes. More legal restrictions could be put in place to stop some of the most harmful industrial practices– but it would increase the cost of production. Silly ideas, huh?
You may be asking yourself, “If you know how to stop it, why aren’t you doing it?”
Great question, I don’t know either.
Even individuals can do their part. Burning gasoline creates 20 pounds of CO2 per mile. An average American shower uses 2.1 gallons of water per minute. Reducing or reusing our resources would have a big impact.
Avoiding disaster is hard. So live in the moment, right?
But… walking a mile can take like a whole extra 15 minutes. Who has that kind of time? Plus, if you drive you can avoid the high temperatures with that deluxe AC maxed out to a sweet 60 degrees Nevermind that your AC use is another step towards the world literally burning up in about 50 years.
The thing is, by the time the effects of climate change are apparent enough for us to want to do something about it, it’ll be too late. Our only chance is to take action now, before the climate crisis gets more extreme.
But avoiding disaster is hard. So live in the moment, right? We still have like 7 years to slow our emissions before we pass the critical threshold and rising temperatures become irreversible, anyway. What do the kids say again?
Oh, right, #YOLO.
