It’s funny, usually celebrities turn issues into causes. But
for this matter, the issue of global warming has turned Al Gore into a
celebrity. Seven years after loosing an election, he’s won an Oscar and Emmy
award.
The question I raise today then is: If global warming is
finally getting the attention it needs (box office hit documentaries and
television prime time specials), then why is the planet still…warming?
The technology exists, the audience exists, but the problem still
exists too. For a while I now I have been trying to answer the question above
and I think I may have finally found the answer: We, most of us at least, don’t
really care. Now before I get your negative feedback please keep reading. I DO
think humans have contributed to this drastic climate change and I DO want to
end it. I just feel, however, that no one is opening their eyes wide enough
because there is nothing to look at.
Sure there are wonderful graphics depicting what COULD
happen and there is even reason to believe that so many of these natural events
are cause by climate change BUT in the end it seems that unless it really hits
people in their own backyard, it really does not concern them.
The way we seem to function is that when something DRASTIC
happens we then take action. And depending on how drastic it is we make
attempts at never letting it happen again. The images of 9/11 had a DRASTIC
effect on Americans and lead to DRASTIC change. Al Gore made a wonderful
analogy for global warming by comparing a frog that jumps into boiling hot
water and a frog that jumps into water slowly being heated to its boiling
point. The frog in the boiling water immediately jumped out but the frog in the
warm water stayed in until it was rescued and if not rescued would have boiled
with the water. So how do we get rescued? One word MONEY.
Until a drastic change hits us in our own backyard we’re not
going to give 110%. Sure lots of people recycle now and lots have downgraded
their H2’s to H3’s but they will eventually draw the line. The line will range
for different people whether it be not wanting to use less toilet paper or not
liking organic foods…until it hits home EVERYONE has a line. Making this game
about money could sure get people to erase the line though.
I don’t care what awards he has…Al Gore IS boring. But
saving money of my electric bill? I would love that! This goes back to the
technology already existing to save us from global warming. The automotive
industry is being so slow into making more efficient cars because they don’t
believe they will be marketable. (I’ll tell you that’s where I draw the line… I
think the Toyota Prius is an awesome car, but I’m not going to work more hours
a week so I can afford one.)
If climate change is advertised differently it will lend
sooner. Put “Saves Money” before “Saves the Environment” and people will be
more likely to by and that is simply because in the end most of us care about
money more that we do the environment. Sure if there was no environment there
would be no money but if most of us had to choose have a cleaner planet for my
grandchildren or leave money for my grandchildren…we’d logically pick the
money.
Now once again I DO care about ending climate change! I just
think it could be done more effectively if it was used with something that had
more effect on us. And before I get the negative responses let me just ask you
do you yourself actually go 110% for the environment?
When your does using the computer
will you shut it off?
How many times a day do you flush
the toilet?
Are all of your foods organic?
Do you five any support to factory
farming by buying foods produced by major food chains?
Is the meat you eat organic?
Do you know what qualifies MEAT to
be organic?
Would it be possible for you take
public transportation to work even though you drive?
Even if it included altering your
schedule?
Now I bet some of you actually are giving 110% and that’s great.
But I won’t lie I am NOT. And it’s not that I cant, because I could. It’s that
it’s not that important to me. I don’t want to wake up earlier so I can take
the bus to work. I hate shutting the printer off because I always forget to
turn it back on.
It just seems more logical to do it this way rather than
wait for the hurricanes to start hitting people all over the country. This way
can even make jobs and possibly replace jobs lost in things like the oil
industry as it declines.
Get me a FREE bus ride to work, maybe I will make up
earlier.
Get CHEAPER organic cleaning products, maybe I’ll use them.
Get me MORE green, maybe I’ll go green.
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just an addition... haha Al Gore has now won the Nobel Peace Prize too