Op-Ed: Who's really to blame for climate change?

With the extremes in temperature and the rising amount of global disasters, the the first decade of the millennium will be likely remembered by the growing global instability and the struggles of mankind - all a byproduct of climate change.

Over the last decade, we have seen Mother Nature just get warmed up. The tsunami that struck the coasts of the Indian ocean in 2004 was only the start of a series of global disasters that has been occurring over the last 4 years. While disasters like Hurricane Katrina, food famines in Africa, the California Wildfires in 2007, and recently, another Earthquake scare in Indonesia and the record flood highs in Eastern Canada, it's beginning to be a difficult problem to ignore. While anti-global warming activists continue to deny, the wild extremes that the world is seeing at virtually every corner, many people are no longer denying its existence, but asking, "how do we fix this?" However, climate change is a product of humanity's development. It has only been in the last 200 years that mankind has learned how to utilize Earth's natural resources out of the 10,000 known years humans have been around. When one looks at the bigger picture, it is no surprise that we've created a world that is based on exploitation. However, as the Earth reacts, the question becomes, 'how do we stop it?' This is where governments have come into play - each individual can do what they can to help slow the progression of global warming, but they lack the agency to effect the world singlehandedly. Instead, they look to their respective governments to ensure their survival (or family's survival) into the future. And it is, up to this point, where I feel that the failure is being perpetuated from. Climate change happened for humanity's first major development - and now, the biggest challenge our species will face is whether or not we find out how to live in peace with our environment (but maybe not with each other). I hesitate to say the consequences, because I feel that I am a person on the extreme-end of the spectrum when it comes to environmental issues. Our governments are the only tangible method of putting a real stabilizer against climate change. There is no other method in place to exert that kind of far-reaching influence in humanity. But when we see no real changes being made, we have to ask 'why'. Because economic concerns are being put ahead of the environment, no real change has been implemented. I'm not going to say that there's no way to solve this problem without money - but money and the environment have to work in unison, not against each other. Governments, in order to create a workable solution, have to place money on research - subsidization to businesses that respect the environment, government-funded programs, Universities, etc - before they really motivate the people to help themselves. Unfortunately, the government and the people have to work together. The recent earth hour and the annual Earth Day is the people's way of showing that they're ready for real change. Motivation is the key to this solution, and money provides motivation - and while the costs may run high to set this kind of mentality up, the payoff will be exponentially greater in the long run. It's strange for a young man such as myself to watch the world that is around him. Nature is responding to our years of abuse, and it has the ability to destroy us. The recent global disasters, to a man like myself, are the warnings. We're not doomed just yet, so a change - one that utilizes mankind's greatest resources, money & adaptation - could be the locked door that just needs to be opened to start fighting back. After all, what is the alternative of inaction?