Why Not Now

On Sunday, I attended the Climate March in New York City. 100,000 people were expected to show up. Instead, it was estimated that 400,000 people showed up. I'm excited that there seems to finally be a huge shift in how we perceive climate change. It's reached a tipping point as widely accepted to be a man-made phenomenon that will have dire consequences in the near future if we don't act. But is it too late? There are so many mass behaviors that people participate in as preventative measures despite not knowing 100% if something negative will happen to us. We purchase car insurance, home insurance and health insurance on the off chance things go wrong. We invest in our financial future early on through social security and 401K's on the off chance we don't fall into large sums of money before retirement. We even ward off the effects of aging and the possibility of cancer through sunscreen.On a corporate level, companies protect themselves from unforeseen issues through insurance, savings and even hiring practices. It is considered a wise business practice to smartly prepare for the future even if that means making sacrifices and expenditures during this preparation.

So why do companies, policy makers and governments so widely question the importance of preventing climate change? At this point in our scientific understanding, it's become clear that further damage can cause irreversible damage. We've already seen billions of dollars spent and millions of lives lost from the effects of climate change, from draughts to hurricanes to heat waves. Is it worth waiting and questioning this statement when so much is at stake? What are we waiting for?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtQyg1l3p9g]