Uncontrolled reproduction is one of several behaviors promoting climate change. It increases the size of the population and changes its distribution and density. As the number of people on earth rises, the emission of greenhouse gases also increases. Large crowds also put more pressure on natural resources, hastening their depletion. Notably, the concentration and distribution of people feature a complex association with climate change. Remarkably, in countries with high per capita emissions, population growth’s impact on climate change is much more significant. Hence, controlling reproduction can reverse the problem, although it may not guarantee a straightforward and speedy process.
Economic consumption is another human behavior that supports climate change. It entails purchasing consumer goods and services and investing in housing and transportation, among similar activities. When individuals buy products wrapped in plastic, for example, they contribute to climate change in two ways. First, they encourage plastics’ continued production, and second, they increase the size of non-biodegradable piles on earth. Plastics and similar wastes contribute to climate change through intricate processes that culminate in greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, some of them end up in incinerators, and their combustion releases a large volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Unsustainable natural resource utilization, driven by individualism and capitalism, is another undesirable behavior leading to global warming. As populations increase and supplies reduce, people scamper for what they can find. This tendency has led to mass deforestation and ongoing exploration of oil and gas to run the global economy. Unfortunately, most of the existing systems are inefficient; they are unable to utilize 100 percent of the resources. Many wastes emanate from the attempted consumption of some goods, which speeds up these resources’ exhaustion. Dealing away with capitalism or managing it better can reduce demand for natural resources, positively impacting the short and long-term climate.
Inaction and a laissez-faire attitude towards pollution despite the clear warning about ongoing climate change have also exacerbated the problem. Scientists have cautioned humans about climate change for years, but the latter has done very little, very slowly, to tackle the matter. For example, fossil fuels remain the essential energy source globally despite their pollutive nature and notwithstanding the availability of cleaner alternatives such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. It is only now that the world has started taking the design and manufacture of fully autonomous and electric vehicles seriously to reduce dependence on oil and gas. Even so, it will be decades before the world fully commercializes these vehicles and realize their benefits to the environment.
Failure to coordinate the effort to respond to climate change is also contributing to the problem. Although the world is aware of global warming, it lacks efficiently synchronized plans to confront the matter. People have also not agreed on the urgency of the issue and why it needs immediate and concerted efforts. For instance, some individuals believe that the whole idea of climate change and global warming is a hoax. Others use the Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that the world is a complex self-regulating system, to argue that pollution (and calls to action to end climate change and global warming) are ignorable. Although the world may be capable of self-regulating, people have an ethical obligation to act responsibly and coordinate their efforts to reduce pollution, climate change, and global warming.