By Juliana Vasquez | Staff Writer
The Earth is warming at unprecedented rates, the oceans are rising, extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and climate change is 100% real. Saving the planet is no simple task, yet the burden feels as if it’s been placed on our generation.
I’m sure the common mantras offered up as ways to be eco-friendly are ringing through your heads right now. Reduce, reuse, recycle, go vegan, drive electric cars, use green energy, the list only goes on and on. Yet no solution seems to be enough.
Recycling only works if people do it properly, and I know I myself am still learning how to recycle truly. Plastic bags, anything smaller than a credit card, dirty or wet items, mixed materials like laminated paper, plastics with a resin code higher than seven, none of these items should end up in your recycling bin or else they can contaminate the entire bin of recycled items.
In some cases, veganism isn’t more green than just eating beef, especially considering air-transported fruits and vegetables. In 2020, the BBC examined veganism’s impact on the environment and found that the carbon footprint of transporting fruits and vegetables. The BBC article said that a frugivorous Italian couple had a larger carbon footprint than most meat-eaters, due to the impact of growing, watering and transporting fruits to their home, as well as the number of fruits they were consuming.
Countless rural communities are reliant on fossil fuel production to keep their towns alive. Renewable energy is more efficient and better for our planet’s survival. At the same time, the rise of renewable energy and the decline in fossil fuel use will cripple rural communities’ primary source of income.
There is no perfect solution to save the planet from climate change. We’re three years away from crossing the 1.5 °C climate target, which brings the risk of ecosystems permanently changing, and even if we started actively saving the planet today, it’s unlikely the effects of climate change will be slowed or reversed.
Likewise, if we reduced fossil fuel use to zero, and everyone became vegan and appropriately recycled, there would still be additional populations harmed.
Regardless, we can still save our planet, just not in the extreme way that is typically marketed. The most efficient way for humanity to slow or reverse the effects of climate change is for us as a society to take the steps we can in our own lives to save the planet.
It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to do everything to reduce their carbon footprint. If we all converted to veganism, the ranching industry would be ruined. If we all used renewable energy, the rural towns whose economies rely on it would crumble. With every pro-environment solution to climate change, there’s a con to the “solution.”
Saving the planet is not a daunting task we all need to bear on our own shoulders. To save the earth, use a reusable bag when you go grocery shopping. To save the planet, turn the lights off when you’re not in the room. There is no perfect solution to save the world because at the end of the day, it’s up to you and what you are willing to do.
