As kids, we are taught that when you make a mess, you clean
it up. It stands as perhaps the earliest
and most basic lesson in responsibility.
My parents took that a step further, probably to blunt any argument
between my brother and me, and noted that it did not matter who made the mess,
we both needed to clean it up. As I
would learn later, this sort of responsibility permeated my parents’ lives and
those of their siblings. They all had
grown up in a neighborhood that took care of itself, and where people took care
of each other. In a poor area, when
problems happen, pointing fingers wastes time; the key is to solve the problem,
then deal with who caused it.
Reading the news this week, I was struck by news of what
some of the poorest nations of the world are doing to address climate change
adaptation. With meager national
budgets, they are using their resources to try and survive against what they
know to be the greatest threat to their survival. What makes this all the more remarkable is
that by almost any measure….
They are not responsible for what’s happening to them.
For decades, and even centuries, the developed nations of
the world have burned through natural resources, polluted air and water, and
drastically altered the chemistry of our atmosphere and oceans. All of this activity came in the name of
progress and increased quality of life; and to a point, it succeeded. Those of us in the West enjoy a relatively
easy life. We tolerate smog alerts and
ozone action days as if they are a normal part of life, but until recently, we
have experienced little of the severe effects of climate change.
Poorer countries are not so lucky. Rising sea levels threaten the survival of
some whole nations. In an economically
and agriculturally diverse nation like the US, a drought rarely affects the
whole crop portfolio, whereas a less developed country with less diversity and
smaller growing regions can be devastated.
Also, these countries have less capital to install levee systems and
other infrastructure to help withstand storm events.
With this backdrop, the actions of the Western countries and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seem even more deplorable. The IPCC full report – the one that states
with 97% certainty that climate change is happening and is caused by human
activity – notes that developing nations will bear the brunt of the
consequences, and that developed nations need to move approximately $100
billion in capital each year to help them cope.
However, the summary document for policy makers that gets targeted
directly at those who have the ability to make that transfer, it did not
include this fact. We have learned from
news reports that the authors intentionally left it out in order to not offend
the developing nations.
Actions like that need to stop.
We made the mess. We
polluted our way to a developed economy.
We took the most economical way without considering whether it was the
ethical way.
And we need to stand up and clean up our mess.
For all the railing I hear against parents these days who
coddle their children, and against people lacking personal responsibility…for
all of that, I would expect that when we hear that nations like the Maldives
will disappear within our lifetime, we would act. We would stand up and take control…not only
to change the way we do things so that we can reduce our impact, but also to
help those who bear the consequences without the responsibility. These nations and peoples did not do the
polluting. Their only mistake was to not
develop fast enough to gain the wealth to be able to skirt responsibility.
And I do not want to hear the call that, “If you want to
take responsibility, then you pay them…but don’t make me do it.” This is on all of us. We all need to stand up and take
responsibility for the actions of our nations.
We need to do this because its ethical, moral, and right.
And because if we do not, we condemn others to die through
no fault of their own.
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