What the world needs now is ACTION, sweet ACTION

The article by Mckibben ‘what the warming world needs now is art, sweet art” certainly evoked many strong emotions in me, ranging from disappointment to fear to excitement. I was disappointed with people in general and myself as well because reading this article made me think that in a time where a person can communicate with someone across the world in a fraction of a second, we all struggle to come together and act as a community regarding climate change, something that affects every single human being on this planet. Although there are individuals who are willing to sacrifice their time for a cause bigger than themselves, the amount of people who are still at a loss on the topic or are unwilling to go out of their own petty and comfortable lives still largely outnumbers the others. I feel a sense of guilt that although I try to avoid contributing to the destruction of our resources it feels to me that there is so much more that I could do. Just as Mckibbens states “it falls to those of us alive now to….document the buzzing, glorious, cruel, mysterious planet we were born onto, before in our carelessness we leave it far less sweet”. This article evokes fear in me upon realizing that “One species, ours, has by itself in the course of a couple of generations managed to powerfully raise the temperature of an entire planet, to knock its most basic systems out of kilter”. It is a scary notion that our seemingly innocent actions such as driving to the movies, leaving the lights on, forgetting to turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth, turning our TV on, leaving the ac on or even taking a longer shower, could have contributed and perhaps maybe even caused our planets resource depletion. Though my impression of this article may seem morbid I nonetheless felt a sense of excitement and maybe even hope that it is in fact not too late to change our ways. Though many blame technology as the root of the problem for having brought us to where we are today, it maybe that it is technology exactly what can help us fix the problem. I feel as if though the problem that we truly face now is the powerful and almighty dollar, money. It is the influence of big companies on politicians that we must truly face in order to make a change. We must overcome as a global community the influence and power of these oil and business tycoons who want people to continue living their comfortable and consuming ways while they continue to profit big time from it, not caring what the ultimate consequence will be. It is as if we have become puppets to these individuals, but it is people like Mckibbens that through SWEET ART can allow us to wake up and cut the strings.