9 Things You Can Do About Climate Change
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Jeff McMahon’s article in Forbes is one of the most complicated articles for me. Others are easy to form opinions on, but his is a bit awkward to deal with. His article relies heavily on pathos. That his article lists “powerful things” (Mcmahon), without putting into perspective how much one person can change the environment on their own is deceptive to me. In short, the article is a list of 9 things that an individual could and should do in order to reduce their contribution to climate change. Something that seems so simple is deceptively complex.
The article starts by saying that the government won’t do anything so that leaves it up to us individuals, a pretty logical progression of thought. However, where McMahon and I diverge is what we think to be the best way to go about this responsibility. I think the answer would be to try to force the government to take action, but he thinks it’s to change whatever personal issue he has that contributes to climate change. To me, it’s unfair that the government won’t take action when I think that they should. McMahon however, has accepted that fact and has decided that there’s nothing that he can do to change it, so the best that he can do is change what he personally does. As some of the other articles from this blog may suggest, this isn’t going to change much in the grand scheme of things.
McMahon’s first point calls on the readers to become vegetarians, saying that greenhouse emissions from animal agriculture could be anywhere from 14-50% of all emissions. While this brings up an issue regarding demand, which is easier addressed elsewhere, it also brings to light the fact that McMahon does understand the statistics, or a least knows of them. He knows that the government should (but won’t) take action, and that big businesses account for a massive amount of climate change, but seems to peg the blame on each individual person. McMahon’s article doesn’t sit right with me in the same way that the National Geographic article doesn’t, it puts the blame on people without taking into account individual situations.
