Global Climate Change, Dealt with Locally

Picture this, you’re driving your car down the road, the musics playing, you’re laughing with your friends, having a great time and you don’t have a care in the world.  You’re not thinking about the fact that as you are driving, you’re emitting a number of different pollutants, many of which are contributing to the Green House Gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere and that those GHGs are contributing to what we know today as Global Climate Change.  You’re also probably not thinking about the fact that your contribution to Global Climate Change is not only effecting you but everyone on this planet.  Climate Change received the “global” precursor because the effects are not localized and because it it something that everyone one this planet can and have contributed to, whether they are aware or not.  So, the question then becomes how are we supposed to address an issue that is not restricted by political boundaries?

This is a question that has come under a great deal of consideration and debate.  The United Nations have done significant work in trying to work out this issue, first in creating the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, then adopting the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in 1992, as well as converging every year for the Conference of the Parties (COP).  How much has this accomplished though? Truthfully, not that much, but again, not without putting the effort forward.  So how should we approach this? I am of the opinion that local and small scale are the way to solve most issues, and this is another one. As nice of a thought as it is to believe that the governments can and will work together to “solve” Global Climate Change, I am under the impression that it won’t work.  If we work together as communities and to is small I think we can make a difference.  By getting people together to really consider the problem at hand, the severity of the problem and the things they can do to help combat global climate change, then I truly believe that this problem can be dealt with.  Changing things on a local level will need to happen eventually for global climate change to really slow, so why not start there.  By making thse these changes locally, the government will have to follow.