The Times podcast: Masters of Disasters: Broken records! The world’s worst environmental crises: from plastic to climate change.
In the 1990s, as the climate-change problem began to emerge as one of our biggest environmental crises, the world seemed united in its desire to stop it. Every major country declared itself to be the “world’s greatest champion of sustainable development.”
The 1990s were when the Green Revolution was first taking hold, when the world began to turn the clock back on how we developed. It was when countries like the United States and Australia announced that they had no more oil and gas to explore and when the “new and untested” technologies were being promoted to replace the old.
Now the same nations come together and, as our last, biggest energy crisis arrives, they are once again making excuses for how to respond to it. This time, they are making excuses for why they need more oil and gas.
One major global-warming crisis is that of plastic waste. But, as we learned from the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the United Nations, the world is using more plastic than ever. The world has gone from having more plastic bottles being discarded than cars to having more plastic bags being sold than cars.
This is a major environmental crisis that is going to cost billions of dollars annually, and the world’s economic growth is being stunted by how we think about our own lives.
How have we failed to put a stop to this? Why are we still talking about this? Why are we still talking about the Green Revolution? Why are we still talking about oil? But we should all be asking ourselves this question: How have we failed to put a stop to this? Why are we still talking about this? Why are we still talking about the Green Revolution?
The world’s economic growth is stunted by how we think about our own lives. Why not create a world that we want to live in? What are the consequences