All things come with a price tag and you have to decide whether you're willing to pay the cost.
It began this way: Inside the comfort of your living room, you're watching the television. You face the news with trepidation as you found out that fifty years from now, the planet you're living in will not be the same as exactly it is today. Expect a world of melting ice caps, rising global temperatures, mass extinctions of species and coral reefs, starvation, and water scarcity.
That being the case, climate change, by all means, is the most pressing issue of our time, touching every corner and aspect of our lives.
There are various things we can do in our quotidian lives to emphatically and positively affect the world we're living, yet for now, I simply have brief words: "To cast your ballot wisely," bearing in mind that mitigating climate change necessitates successful and effective policy measures. Withal, voting for leaders that support climate policy solutions is without a doubt a significant duty that we, the citizens, can undertake in this democratic society. Above all, recognizing the intricacy of global warming as a voting issue is unequivocally essential for fostering public and political support for climate solutions.
In view of all this, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning to clean energy sources is undeniably one of the main solutions toward settling this increasingly problematic matter. By 2030, investments in cleaner energy and sustainable resource management are expected to produce 65 million jobs and avert 700,000 premature deaths due to air pollution.
Over and above that, nations can likewise disperse seeds to ranchers and farmers, while giving them admittance to loans and technologies that can help harvests, while ranchers and farmers, then again, can invest into reforestation and coastline reclamation ventures to further develop water security, shield networks from cataclysmic events, and set out financial open doors.
None of these things, however, will become a reality until we increase funding. The discourse will be unpredictable if the sitting administration does not ensure that funds get to the ground. If the leadership does not have the ability to put strategies into place, the conversation will become erratic.
Furthermore, each citizen has a responsibility to demand leaders to address climate change in an exceptionally serious manner, to make them understand that climate change is a human rights issue, and to make them cognizant of the fact if that they don't act now, they are condemning us and the generations to come to despair.
Climate change is not an isolated issue. It is linked to a larger ecological crisis on which human well-being, justice, and equity depend on. This is why people need to decide that they are earnestly committed to ending the prevailing climate and environmental crises. Every citizen needs to take action and to do better.
Unless we wake up and openly protest what is happening right in front of our eyes, one thing is certain: There's always a place that exists outside of space and time, it's better than here, and it's where we want to go. In some sense, your life is defined by the costs you're willing to pay. Thus, if a better world exists and it demands payment, what are you willing to sacrifice?
About the Author
Sofia Aldovino is a high school student from the Philippines. She describes herself as a person with a strong moral compass and a creative aptitude.
