Survival of humanity

Humanity has always looked towards the surface of the earth as a source that provides food, security, identity, survival, and so forth. However, there is a thin line over our planet called the atmosphere, as usually seen in videos and images of the earth when viewed from space that guarantees our survival.

It is the very atmosphere that the humans with their relentless consumption of fossil fuels are filling up with carbon dioxide, which is harming the earth and causing global warming. It was on the insistence of the Republican Party of the United States that global warming was replaced with the term climate change, because the latter is less direct, more vague and less harsh. Nevertheless, it has become a real threat for the survival of life on earth.

For a long time, people thought that by buying land, they would ensure their survival and power as owning land is not only a symbol of status, but also a guarantee of better lives for the family’s next generation. However, different cultural, religious, and economic beliefs changed that perception to some extent. Every now and then people see advertisements promoting the purchase of cryptocurrencies instead of land. Enter climate change and the entire calculus changes.

Previously, land was bought for means of survival, but today, means of survival must be bought to live on land. In the absence of breathable air, fresh water, and other necessary factors required for the survival of humanity, the ownership of land means nothing. The world, including the government, the private sectors, and the general public must invest their money and energies in companies that have a clear and well defined goal of solving the problem of climate change.

For starters, the major dent in climate change would be the abandonment of fossil fuel usage.

In order to move the clock counter-wise on fossil fuels’ carbon emissions, one must invest in companies that make an effort to utilize renewable and other clean sources of energy. People can also buy stocks in companies to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere, though we must remain mindful that it is merely a temporary and incomplete solution.

The best investment one could make for the health and survival of the coming generations is not to buy land but to invest in efforts that will keep the air clean and make the atmosphere carbon sanitized. What the next generation needs from us, is an insurance against the bad habits of driving around in cars with fuel combustion engines that results in massive carbon emissions. To avoid the devastating impact of climate change tomorrow, our mindset and action towards the issue must change today. Otherwise, the next generation might not survive.

Economic collapse, civil wars, hunger, thirst, famine and pandemics, are some of the certain outcomes of a warming world. As a result, people tend to move towards cooler and habitable regions. Research has shown that in a warming world, people’s productivity would decline, clashes over resources would increase, people would lose patience more abruptly, and so forth.

In a world beset with the challenges of climate change, the thawing of The Arctic and Antarctica would release viruses that are now trapped within the ice. The world’s leading scientists would be perplexed with the resulting pandemic from the freshly released viruses. This is best illustrated by the state of the world’s richest and the most powerful country against a deadly virus and its variants.

Speaking of oceans, they are also susceptible to climate change along with the land as they are the ones taking in the heat that humans produce.

The truth is that one of the major reasons for global warming are the private corporations. But ironically, the private sector can also play a pivotal role in turning the tide of this threat. While the urgency would come from the private sector, the agency from the rest would be the key. Remember when the first iPhone came, nobody wanted a phone with a keypad anymore. The phone industry changed literally overnight.

The point is: the market and politics are driven by demand. People must want it and invest in it.

The writer is a commentator on climate change and international politics