Individual actions not enough to combat climate change

I try to do my part to combat climate change. At 7, after my parents told me about Colorado droughts, I challenged myself to shower in under three minutes, getting back to the TV just as the commercial break on the Disney Channel ended. I boycotted dryers — instead, I hung my sheets in haphazard forts dangling off open hallway doors.

The campaigns to reduce individual carbon footprints have touched me and inspired lasting behavioral change, but what many of these campaigns miss is that individuals alone are not the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Science Magazine, just 90 companies and government-funded industries worldwide were responsible for two-thirds of carbon emissions in 2016.

As consumers, we do create demand for what these companies are producing, but individual consumers changing habits will not stop corporations from dumping waste into our waterways. Not to mention being able to buy “green” and take some of these individual measures can be expensive and inaccessible to lowerincome families.

I believe we should keep limiting our individual carbon emissions, but the climate crisis will continue to spiral if we don’t regulate corporate pollution practices.

To my fellow Coloradans, keep riding your bike, hang your clothes out on a line every now and again, but I urge you to take your individual measures a step further— talk to our representatives to support corporate pollution regulations now.

Silen Wellington, Fort Collins