If we all come together, change will happen
Eugenia Trevino (she/her) // Contributor
Andy Poystila (he/him) // Illustrator
Climate change is a concerning and complicated issue, partly due to insufficient actions, but I believe there is enough time to reverse our environmental circumstances, such as global warming, climate change and food shortage. At the beginning of human society, people weren’t aware of the harmful impacts of their actions towards the environment.
For instance, many countries and areas don’t require recycling. In fact, my hometown never encourages or offers recycling programs. When my family separated the trash appropriately, the workers would just mix it together, so we stopped trying to recycle until we arrived in Vancouver.
Despite the fact that Earth Day is not as popular as Christmas and Halloween, it needs to be more encouraged and promoted. This should be the case because time delays might lead the planet to a permanent problem. Sadly, many people either have inaccurate knowledge about the Earth’s situation, or are too lazy to correct it — partly because it requires a lot of money and resources. One of our first moves should be active collective action.
To make things worse, my private schooling didn’t focus enough on environmental concerns or encourage recycling. General society still needs more actions to reverse climate change issues. Pollution and deforestation, which are just some of the problems, still concern authorities and experts. Earth Day is a great idea to encourage everyone to help the planet and encourages more love and care for the planet with strong strategies. Therefore, Earth Day should happen in everyday routines, not just on that one day.
People tend to follow social trends, behaviour and mentality, especially when their friends and family members are participating. The global population needs to use more social power to help the planet. For instance, they should encourage people to do helpful things for the planet, like doing a good environmental gesture everyday. There are several ways to do this – recycling, cleaning the streets or creating environmental events.
While social trends are essential, there are other options that require more in person support. What this could look like is utilising the younger population, especially students, to support us. For instance, elementary and high schools should promote and organize environmental activities. I believe that these strategies could be a game changer.
With continuous action and encouragement, society will likely develop a habit to care about the planet. As a society, we can create better habits by using marketing approaches, such as announcements and social challenges. Between potential environmental solutions, social media is a strong choice because it has become an important part of our lives.
As social encouragement happens, everything will improve and it will encourage countries to work together. Potentially, they will create and collaborate into some kind of “Earth Day” as an everyday routine. If they are successful, other countries might consider the same actions or even more. Even then, the participating countries will be wanting to do even more; therefore, they might do more media awareness in social media and television. In fact, influencers and celebrities should encourage environmental challenges, such as cleaning or finding ways to recycle waste. Just like people socialize, we can use a similar approach to help the planet.
Another problem in certain parts of society is inaccurate information, especially people who spread false news. These people are successful because they have lots of fans and influence. To correct this, people should research the given information to ensure that it is accurate. If we teach young children to ensure the accuracy of popular information, children will develop the skills they need to distinguish between opinions and what is real. These days, it is easy to misunderstand and mislabel, especially information by “specialists” and websites. Social media and the internet are useful tools, but it is important to use critical thinking skills and to be cautious.
The Earth needs our help after previous generations have harmed and mistreated it. We can use the internet, social media, certain social patterns and encouragement as a global society. If we try to commit to doing an environmental action every day, we can increase our chances to reverse most of the environmental issues. If we manage to make daily environmental actions a social trend, we will have an advantage, and significant progress in our fight against environmental issues, including climate change. I am certain that we can do it again — taking one step at the time. We can resolve problems and live happily.