• Question: What's the most we can do to stop climate change?

    Asked by anon-74263 to Jeni on 30 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 30 Apr 2020:

      What a great question – I’m sorry it’s such a long answer!

      Climate change can be worrying, but there’s lots of positive things we can do to help. There’s two different sides to it: what you can do on an individual level, and what society needs to do together.

      On an individual level, a good way to figure out your contribution to climate change is to work out your ‘carbon footprint’. There are lots of great resources online that will help you do this. This will show you which parts of your life are contributing the most to climate change, and this is where you could focus your attention. This will be different for each person. For example, some people fly a lot and so they could make the most difference by cutting down on flights. For others, they may not fly at all, but perhaps they could eat less meat & this might be how they can make a difference.

      Individual actions are important, but big problems also need some big solutions. This means we also need to focus on what we could achieve by taking action as a whole society. Politicians and leaders need to make some important decisions.

      You might be too young to vote, but there’s lots of ways you can use your voice. Greta Thunberg has shown what a difference one young person can make! But you don’t have to be famous to make a difference. Perhaps you can write a letter to an MP or to someone famous, or get involved in a movement or charity that you agree with. Even talking to the adults you know might help – maybe they’ll make different decisions at work, at home, or when they’re voting, because of something you’ve said. Don’t be disheartened, though, if it doesn’t feel like it helps – even the smallest action will make a difference in the end.

Comments

  • tomstewartbrackenridge commented on :

    I think the best thing we can do to reduce climate change would be to reduce waste. All forms of waste such as food, electricity, and all other things. Waste plays a huge role in the environment and can leave its damage for many years to come when we are not around. Single-use plastics which take many hundreds, maybe thousands of years to degrade has some of the most damaging consequences, as the process of breaking them down isn’t environment friendly. They can release lots of harmful gases and air pollution into the atmosphere. This is just an example of one, there are hundreds which equally have there own impact in our climate. The single best thing to do is to do your bit as best you can. If everyone was to do something small it would have a huge impact!

  • Photo: Andrew

    Andrew commented on :

    Climate change is a big political, human, economic and technological challenge. On the human level, small things such as walking rather than driving, being conscious of your use of resources can make a difference. The challenge is huge though so we also need strong leadership from politicians, through forums such as the Paris agreement, national & international government bodies. These have the power to set the economic direction for the whole country. And policiticans are ultimately accountable to us – so by drawing attention to climate issues we can push our politicians to take big actions. Economically, companies will be the main engine for change. Companies respond to shareholder pressure, and government actions – again, by drawing attention to climate concerns we can push them to invest more in green energy, waste less, or invent new technologies to reduce our climate impact.
    Finally, engineers, scientists and technologists can all have a huge impact by overcoming challenges such as low-carbon energy. So perhaps a big impact we can all have, and which you could have too, is by using our engineering & science skills to create new technologies for the greener world we need in the future