Climate change: Ignorance Costs

The Conference of Youth talks about obstacles to information about Climate Change.

By Silvia Debiasi e Luiza Winckler

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In the opening day at the COY10, the Conference of the Youth in preparation for the COP20, a meeting was held on the little information and the lack of commitment of people regarding Climate Change. The group was extremely diverse, achieving one of the objectives of the COY10.

The point was to confront different experiences and nationalities in order to bring to light points in common and divergences among participants. The represented countries were India, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Italy.There are different motivations to explain the low commitment of people in general towards the problematic.

Surely there are political motives, for which a serious approach from the ruling class translates into an economic duty as well, avoided by the majority. It is also important to consider that any type of action will only show its results within many years, when those politicians who promoted such acts will no longer be in power. For that reason often is preferred to invest in fields that would allow politicians to get some immediate credit and thus keep their positions. Then its also the small interest from the public in general, a little bit because perhaps talking about the future is not as imperative as talking about the present, also maybe because the change in attitudes implies an effort that often people is not willing to take and maintain.

Bottom line, there is a problem in the argument itself: whether because it is about very technical information hard to put in simple words, or because it is difficult to apply the effects of climate change to the local realities of which we are a part of. In conclusion, one could argue that the connecting thread of the varied individual explanations is the fact that our alterations are not visible and even less immediate.

Therefore people often feels discouraged, but its effort, united with that of every other individuals sharing the same ideology and preoccupation, can really have an unexpected effect. In fact, on one side there is all those people willing to achieve a change, with a new lifestyle and sustainable point of view; on the other side the appropriate pressures on political institutions to make them commit the rest of the excluded population.