Introduction
Environmental issues often seem to have implied consequences or costs that tend to be left unattended. As such, climate change is thought to be a grave disaster for our planet, but it is not always clear what consequences it has for people in various aspects of their lives. To my mind, economic implications are one of the most concerning because the economy is one of the pillars of modern society.
The Economic Implications of Climate Change
One of the main economic implications of climate change is the shift in people’s needs. For generations, people who used the Earth’s natural resources have no knowledge or concern for their exhaustibility. By producing goods from them, humanity has harmed the planet and undermined its ecological stability seeking only economic profit. This economic profit certainly seems to have raised living standards providing the masses with better, food, clothing, shelter, recreations, and other benefits of civilized society.
However, the quality of life, as we have soon realized does not depend solely on the number of goods we can purchase. In modern times, science has allowed humanity to see the global consequences of its actions. The knowledge of what climate change is and that it happens, among other things, due to the harmful influence of human economic activity became a universally acknowledged fact. Having realized that should we continue to operate in such a manner, our home will face the situation most dire, and all progress we have achieved in making our life comfortable could be undone, humanity has started to adjust its economic priorities.
As a matter of fact, the primal element of the production, natural resources, and the impact of their processing has been reconsidered. Today, people are becoming increasingly concerned about what damage their production causes to nature and how much it contributes to climate change. For instance, it became popular to pay more for goods that are made without considerable damage to our planet or environmentally-friendly goods. The demand for eco-friendly solutions has skyrocketed in many spheres such as the car industry, food, clothing, housing, and so on. The supply has adapted to the trend and now people have electric cars that do not pollute the environment and, therefore, slow down the advent of climatic changes. We have food grown with no pesticides spread on the fields polluting the soil, which stops disturbing the ecological balance in that regard (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2015). Our houses are now heated by means other than coal that heavily pollutes the atmosphere.
All these innovations are the result of the shift or, rather, an extension of our understanding of comfort. Now, comfort includes not only the acquisition of goods but also a safe and healthy environment around us. This extension reshaped the global economy and set a goal for minimizing the influence of human activity on the environment.
As of yet, the impact of this economic change is rather insignificant, as many countries are still unaware or unwilling to switch their economic paradigm to a more safe one. However, the fact that at least some people and countries are actively moving towards non-intrusion and restoration of nature’s balance gives humanity hope for a better tomorrow.
Conclusion
All things considered, climate change is still a pressing global matter that requires the combined effort of all people for its resolution. The economic impact from the acknowledgment of the problem is rather positive yet not sufficient for its resolution. In my view, however, it is only the beginning, and with time the global economy will witness more actions aimed towards saving our planet from climate change.
Reference
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2015). Climate change 2014: Mitigation of climate change (Vol. 3). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.