The clock on climate change is ticking fast, while the irreversible effects of climate change continue to escalate. Referring to Earth’s change in air pressure, clouds, humidity, temperature, and precipitation patterns over time, climate change is negatively influencing our planet. Our Earth faces the consequences of our population’s use of nonrenewable resources, the industrialization of agriculture, manufacturing, and other human actions. Within the past 150 years, carbon dioxide within the atmosphere had increased more than 30 percent from humans burning fossil fuels and agriculture. Furthermore, Americans understand the correlation between their actions and the effects they have on the environment. Studies conducted at Yale University and reported within the American Psychology Association, the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists to improve society and lives, found that 71 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening. With a larger percentage of Americans understanding the circumstances of climate change, it is undebatable that actions must be made by the government. Climate change is a growing problem that must be stopped, through the action of implementing environmental policies to regulate human actions.
While well-acknowledged and mentioned within the media, the hot topic of climate change has been a long-debated and well overdue topic set for change. Rooting from many causes, this growing problem is, in turn, influencing the entirety of our planet. The human population withholds the entirety of the blame, being the cause of emissions, pollution, overproduction, and waste. More notably the state of Colorado is facing lasting consequences for our actions. Colorado’s climate has changed, increasing two to three degrees Fahrenheit in the last century. While not presenting itself as significant, the two to three degrees have greatly influenced Colorado as a result of heatwaves. Consequently, as the state rises in degrees the snow has become less prevalent and melts earlier on within the year, resulting in less water flow to the Colorado River. With Colorado originally being a drier state, the lack of water poses a large threat to farmers and increases the risk of further wildfires. While the lasting impacts of climate change are undebatable, the question is whether further policies should be put into action to prevent more irreversible damage, and possibly reverse existing damage. With many scientists’ research and findings on climate change, they have roughly calculated a ten-year time frame to limit the amount of waste and emissions produced in hopes of limiting climate change (Blumsack). Thus, the increasing problem of climate change is influencing Colorado through heatwaves and related effects, bringing up the discussion on whether further regulations should be implemented to discourage further damage.
With the recent focus of climate change and a ten-year time frame to reverse the damages made, it is often believed that action can easily be made; however, it is unrealistic to believe measures can be made to reverse the effects of climate change. Over the history of climate change, businesses and companies have made minimal changes to incorporate renewable energy sources. While there have been some changes with the addition of these energy sources, the change has barely made a dent to slow down the expanding effects of climate change. Furthermore, while there have been proposals for environmentally friendly energy sources there have been many unsuccessful results. Within the article “The Green New Deal's 10-year Timeframe Is Unrealistic Even If A Lot Can Happen In A Few Decades” author Seth Blumsack, a Pennsylvania professor of energy policy and economics, explains various proposals for change that require more time for execution than the time we have to make a change. One policy, in particular, being the Green New Deal, “Two proposals in the Green New Deal, to make buildings highly energy-efficient and to electrify transportation, would require action on the part of hundreds of millions of people. These are also areas where change has generally come much more slowly”. While America has the intentions for change, the proposed solutions are often unrealistic time, money, and manpower wise. Because of the challenges, we are faced with, the time we have to stop climate change is insufficient to make an adequate change. Through prolonging our plans to take action, we have left no time to reverse enough damage in ten years. Therefore, it is concluded that further execution for change is unrealistic because of the impractical time, money, and manpower required to follow through on policies.
While some may believe that the implementation of change is unrealistic for the ten-year timeframe, it is concluded that further policies to execute energy-efficient builds and actions pose as a plausible nonrenewable energy source. Previously explained, the application of realistic policies on energy sources is difficult, however, with America’s goal of decreasing the damage the country will need to drastically change its energy sources. Illustrated within “The Green New Deal's 10-year Timeframe Is Unrealistic Even If A Lot Can Happen In A Few Decades”, author Seth Blumsack quotes National Geographic, explaining how various countries have modernized to nearly one-hundred percent renewable energy sources: Costa Rica, Ireland, and Norway just to name a few. Leading by example, these numerous nations have converted their energy sources into renewable. The United States, and more specifically Colorado, could drastically lessen our carbon footprint on our planet through following the lead of various nations. Thus, the further implementations of government-aided policies would provide a solution against climate change, as seen in various other countries in enforcing renewable energy sources.
While easily nitpicked, government-aided policies, posses the only plausible solution to climate change. These policies provide a solution by having the power to aid through the creation of new jobs that encourage renewable energy. Described within the article “A Green New Deal is Fiscally Responsible”, the authors explain the benefits of environmental policies, like the Green New Deal, and how it opens the door for economic advancement and job opportunities. Maintaining credibility, Justin Talbot is a senior advisor for the Center for Economic Policy Research, Ben Beachy is the director of the Sierra Club's Living Economy program, and Rhiana Gunn-Wright is a policy director for New Consensus. The authors explain, “The plan would create millions of jobs… Whether replacing lead pipes, weatherizing homes, manufacturing components for light rail, or rehabilitating damaged ecosystems, a Green New Deal would put money in the pockets of the workers”. As described within the article, further application of environmental policies would take the jobs of those working for non-renewable sources, replacing them with jobs to incorporate energy-efficient sources and appliances, while creating a plethora of new occupations. While explained through The Green Deal, additional policies would create a plethora of new environmentally stable jobs, eliminating nonrenewable energy jobs. Thus, the manpower would cycle from jobs in the nonrenewable energy industry to aiding renewable energy sources. Therefore, further implementations of government-aided policies provide a solution against climate change, allowing for more job opportunities to enforce renewable energy.
Through the advocation of further environmental policies, further irreversible effects caused by climate change have the possibility of being significantly reduced. While not successful, the New Deal had already implemented a policy, fighting against climate change from the agricultural standpoint in the 1930s. Explained by Eric Holt-Giménez, agroecologist and executive director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, within his article “We Produce Too Much Food. The Green New Deal Can Stop This”, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was made through the Green New Deal. As stated in his article, Giménez explains a successful and running policy, “The first New Deal implemented the Agricultural Adjustment Act to keep farmer incomes steady by controlling overproduction… The Green New Deal provides an opportunity to establish a new social contract today to once again prevent agricultural overproduction”. Described within Giménez’s article, the policy enacted by The Green New Deal would provide closure to lessen pollution from an agriculture standpoint, unlike the previously implemented policy from 1933. Through this, it is shown that previous policies that have been enforced were unsuccessful due to its forceful nature. With the knowledge of the wrongings from the previously established policies, it can be concluded that further policies would be able to learn from the mistakes made centuries ago. While both policies sounding similar, the two would be executed and enforced differently, to prevent the repetition of the past. Therefore, it is concluded that the implementation of environmental policies allows a solution to the growing problem of climate change because of the previous knowledge of unsuccessful acts.
The long-debated and overdue topic of climate change has been discussed by various authors within numerous sources for centuries. In particular author of Washington Post Debbie Barker and Michael Pollan, environmental advocate and professor, previously discussed possible solutions to climate change before the Agricultural Adjustment Act was incorporated. Within their article “A Secret Weapon to Fight Climate Change: Dirt”, the two describe a possible policy to fight climate change from an agricultural standpoint. As the article was initially written in 2015, it can be concluded that the problem had been rightfully debated. Through the knowledge of the New Act, an unsuccessful policy created to address climate change agriculturally, the Green New Deal would be able to learn from past mistakes and address the long-debated problem.
Although many question the application of environmental policies, further implementation is necessary for the beginning to prevent additional irreversible damages caused by climate change. For the sake of Colorado’s future, climate change has already been pushed to its peak and actions must be taken. With the safety of the public in mind, the incorporation of environmental policies creates more options for solutions.
