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In the coming year<\/span>s<\/span>\u00a0we need to rethink<\/span>\u00a0our love for consumption and short term priorities. This is a major challenge that is not easy to overcome.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The<\/span>\u00a0case for emergency action on climate change is being better understood. Almost 30 years since the first climate treaty of the United Nations in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, carbon emissions worldwide last year reached a record 37.1 billion tons.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In October of last year,\u00a0<\/span>United Nations\u00a0<\/span>scientists\u00a0<\/span>warned that there is only<\/span>\u00a012 years<\/span>\u00a0for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1<\/span>.5 degrees Celsius. More than this, the increasing temperatures are predicted to cause colossal chaos: more than 10 million people would have had to leave their homes because of rising sea levels; fires will increase\u00a0 as will droughts and extreme weather that will leave a huge impact on agriculture and nature.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Having said this, thanks to the efforts of activists and scientists, in some parts of the world the\u00a0<\/span>need for\u00a0<\/span>emergency<\/span>\u00a0action on climate change is at last being given the attention it deserves. If we take the European continent, for example, the European Parliament elections in May saw\u00a0<\/span>the<\/span>\u00a0Green parties win almost 10 per cent of the seats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The danger, however, persists. For tens of years, our attitude to the climate change crisis\u00a0<\/span>merged satisfaction with denial and the number of individuals and politicians who were seriously committed to take action on this was minimal. In the light of increasing recorded temperatures and increasing emissions, countries around the world are making an attempt to create policies in the right direction.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Recently, economist Joseph\u00a0<\/span>Stiglitz<\/span>\u00a0wro<\/span>te that we need to think about responding to<\/span>\u00a0climate change<\/span>\u00a0as though we were preparing for a \u2018third world war\u2019. The climate crisis is different from war because it has no end \u2013 or not the same type of ending. Although there is an enemy, in the form of the powerful fossil fuels industry and the politicians who support it, it is an enemy that is much harder to identify than a foreign power.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Also, indiv<\/span>idual choices are important but,\u00a0<\/span>if they are extreme<\/span>, focusing on changing personal habits will not work. Not eating animal products or travelling by air\u00a0<\/span>are<\/span>\u00a0positive actions we can\u00a0<\/span>take. However, they are extreme and they will not save the world. What we need to do is re-<\/span>orient<\/span>\u00a0our policies within the framework of the limitations of our planet.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It seems that today\u2019s youths today have the best<\/span>\u00a0initiatives to address the situation. Remember Swedish<\/span>\u00a0youth Greta Thunberg\u2019s call for adults to join a worldwide general strike in September? It makes sense that youths be at the forefront of addressing environmental issues. With so many years ahead of them, they are the ones who stand most to lose from the status quo.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, youths know that they cannot solve the crisis on their own. Adults need to show them which priorities to address first. With collective enterprise and collaboration we can address the climate emergency before it is too late.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the coming years\u00a0we need to rethink\u00a0our love for consumption and short term priorities. This is a major challenge that is not easy to overcome.\u00a0 The\u00a0case for emergency action […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2729,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[118],"issuem_issue_categories":[105,9],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2734"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2745,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2734\/revisions\/2745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=2734"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=2734"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=2734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}