Climate Change is a Business!

That is an odd topic to touch, but the more we see climate activists and the news, we just get sick of hearing it repeatedly. We all know what is happening because we keep hearing it every day, or if you open the news channels, every 3 hours.

The thing is we are not listening to what they are saying, it’s like your wife keeps yelling to turn the tap off, but you don’t do it because you heard her say it so many times, and you even thought of doing it but it hasn’t affected you till now so you don’t bother. Until your house is overflowing with water and you are drowning, you will not turn it off.

Why I say climate change is a business, it is because it has effects on everything you see around you; political, social, economic and environmental. It also affects different types of businesses but that is a completely different sub-category. The effects of climate change are so widespread that people have started using the apocalypse to run their business. It is unsettling to think of people using green as a prefix to crackers or anything from which you can start up a business.

Now, let us connect a few dots of how everything in this world is inter-related and can cause destruction if we use climate change as just as a pawn for business. 

Imagine yourself to be the owner of a soap company. You have been hearing about the “climate change ” buzz and feel that this would be a good business proposition to expand your line. You ask the R&D team to do some research and add some herbal content into your product and remove some lathering content to make it look like GREEN.

You launch the new product and invest a lot of money in marketing the product. Assuming you were doing well in the earlier products as well, you have a huge success in this as well and order the factories to produce in bulk. The factories are polluting into the seas and rivers as usual, but your production booms in a year. People are impressed with your product and they buy in bulk to be environment-friendly. However, you know and the entire research and development team know that it is not eco-friendly. The entire state is using your soap, and a large number of chemical waste is disposed off into the drains every day.

So now, your factories are polluting the land and the seas, and so is your product. This has been going on for a decade now and there are other companies in various business lines that are adding bit by bit to this gradual destruction of the environment. People are unaware of the difference between pure organic and business organic, and since business organic is cheaper, people prefer that. In that way, they believe they are being eco-friendly and yet not drill a hole through their pockets.

The reason for climate change is YOU!

Due to a large amount of pollution from different parts of the world, the atmosphere starts losing its temper and heats up. This heating caused the glaciers to melt; tropical temperatures to rising and in-turn destroy the habitats of millions of flora and fauna. The rising sea levels cause the low-lying areas to drown easily, forcing a million more species to migrate or die of habitat changes including people living in the coastal areas.

At this point, we have tipped off so far that we are unable to figure out where things went wrong. Because of drastic climatic conditions, unforeseen natural disasters occur like earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, tsunami, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes. Nevertheless, you are just reading about this in the news, while drinking your morning tea, getting ready to go to work to sell your product. You read about, pray for the people suffering (depending on your empathy level) and then move on because you are safe. You have not been affected by …yet.

But a few months later your business falls because a lot of the factory workers have been affected by the harsh, remote climatic conditions and they left their jobs. The factory shuts down and one random climate activist finds out a loophole in the content of your “green soaps”. You have to answer the customer protests and pay a huge fine to the government. Eventually, you move from a big house to a smaller house and in a couple of months, your house drowns in a flood with whatever was left of you.

You feel it is important to acknowledge changes, by reacting to them, when what matters is your action, right action!

Now, you cannot even afford your own soap, and somehow you are still not able to figure what went wrong. You feel it is important to acknowledge changes, by reacting to them, when what matters is your action, right action! You do not have to change the world to be a hero. You can help in bringing the right awareness to people by showing how it is done. 

I understand climate change is a very sensitive issue and it is hard for people to relate to their lives. Therefore, if we really wish to make a difference, first we understand how it can affect us, and then help others look into the future through their eyes.

(Shraddha is an energy engineer working towards an interdisciplinary approach in sustainable development, energy optimization and green energy to solve climate change issues. She can be contacted on Twitter and Instagram)

(The views expressed in the article are the author’s own. Let Me Breathe neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)