As noted in my initial post, climate change remains the number one social problem that American society is facing. This problem has been steered by the environmental damage from human activities that consequentially altered the planet’s ecological system, thereby harming humankind. In a nutshell, nature is self-adjusting regardless of its evolving subsystems, therefore making the ecosystem very stable. However, unprecedented changes have been rapidly occurring in the ecosystem as engineered by to human activities thus pushing climate change to the global map as a growing and enormous problem.
As the course is coming to a close, environmental problems still tops my social problems because their economic, scientific, and political implications cannot be separated from the colossal social impact they are exerting in the American population. The ultimate concern, therefore, becomes the wellbeing of Americans and the displacement climate change is causing in the country. For instance, the seasonal wildfires and extreme weather events have changed the social structure of our people, something that was never planned for. Besides affecting the water and air quality, the security of the living environment and food production has also been altered, making it difficult for the affected American population to recover. Climate change has also exposed other social issues to the surface, such as poverty and health issues rendering the affected regions unable to maintain their lifestyles amid the crisis. As such, this problem is reflective of my initial post at the beginning of the semester.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Being the second leading country in greenhouse gases emission, America has laid a strategy for substantially and permanently reduce emissions. Firstly, States have been voluntarily engaging in programs to cut the emissions and subsequently curbing the rising growth of US emission. However, the efforts have not been entirely successful because the population growth and economic expansion demands have outpaced the efficiency efforts. Other mandatory actions that the country has taken include measuring and tracking of greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Energy has a legislation for reporting the annual emissions thus serving as a foundation for obligatory approaches towards the reduction of GHGs. Secondly, although exit plans are underway, the US is also part of the Paris Climate Agreement, whose aim is holding the average rising global temperature to less than 2 degrees beyond the “pre-industrial levels.” For feasibility, the undertaking also requires a reduction of the greenhouse emissions characterizing the state efforts to curb the menace.
On my part, I believe that as one person in seven billion, I have made personal attempts to resolve the problem. As part of the solution, I have reduced my annual power consumption to 1800 watts as compared to the average American level of 12000. By making better lifestyle choices such as conscious power consumption, I am playing a part in lowering the numbers. I also reside in a small house per the tiny house footprint recommendation as an effort to reverse the lifestyle of living in large spaces, which is unfriendly to the planet. Notably, by living efficiently, I am not just shrinking life but instead enjoying immense financial and psychological benefits. I believe that in spite of the furor over international reports and conferences, the problems of climate change are of personal consumption, and thus however small, own efforts matter.
The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is still what I agree with most. This is because of measuring and endorsing the “pre-ecological” global view and its extensive use in environmental issues where behavior and attitudes can be explained using underlying values. As maintained by the theoretical perspective, the global population as a dominant social paradigm continues to evolve, thereby reflecting more environmental concerns. Therefore NEP will continue to be predominantly used to illustrate that human ecological interdependence with other species will continue (Harper & Snowden, 2017).
References
Harper, C., & Snowden, M. (2017). Environment and Society: Human Perspectives on Environmental Issues . Taylor & Francis.
