Feel free to either agree or disagree with the Grist op-ed. Give evidence for your opinion, either from the Grist op-ed itself or from another online source. It’s a good idea to engage with specific aspects of the text’s ideas, language or context when developing your opinion
24 Replies to “Grist Oped_Reading Reaction”
Laura Benjaminsen’s Grist Reaction
The main thing I agreed with, in the article was that people don’t treat climate change with as much urgency because people see it as a future threat. It’s hard for people to understand the consequences and dangers of climate change without experiencing it, but once people start to experience those things, it will be too late to do anything about it. The uncertainty of it also is a big issue for people because climate change has been talked about for many years, but people don’t think anything bad has really happened yet because of it, so it’s easy to keep thinking nothing will happen for a while. with the Coronavirus, people can see the effects on a daily basis and it’s a fairly new disease that hasn’t been talked about much. One day there was news about a virus spreading so many people panic because they don’t know what it is or how to protect themselves from it. I believe if people treated climate change with the same urgency as they did with the Coronavirus, there would be a big change in our environment.
That’s true, Laura! Just imagine the climate change solutions if we poured the same funds and attention (or even one half of the funds or attention) in solving global warming.
Dale’s Grist Reaction
I agree with the point in the article that people’s urgency to deal with climate change is not so high. It is difficult to understand the consequences and risks of climate change. And coronavirus, people can see its spread and infection every day, many people feel panic, because they don’t know what it is, and don’t know how to protect themselves from it. But in fact, the harm of the two is the same, but it may only take a few months or years to solve the virus. It will take decades or even a century to tackle climate change.
Parth’s Grist Reaction
This article is very interesting as it is able to look at climate change in the lens of the COVID-19 virus. This disease has put the world in a very unprecedented state of hysteria and panic, and governments all around the world have worked fast and efficiently to reduce the viruses exposure. The Op-ed brings up some very good points on familiarity being a huge difference in the way people react to the COVID-19 and climate change. I myself have been hearing about climate change since I was young, and agree with Shannon Osaka that climate change has become more desensitizing. I would however, like to add another reason I think that COVID-19 is taken more seriously, and that there is direct correlation between the loss of human lives and the spread of this disease. This allows the disease to be more frightening and not be shackled as much by the politics that control climate change regulations.
Divij’s Grist Reaction
The oped compares how we react to climate change to how we have reacted to corona virus so far. I agree with a point that the article states,”Maibach in the article, people have a tendency to react strongly or overreact to risks that seem new, uncertain, uncontrollable, and life-threatening. COVID-19 displays all of these qualities.” This is just human nature and climate change hasn’t yet affected humans in a manner that corona virus has but eventually it will, and when it does we will have a very similar reaction to it.
I agree with the argument that humans do not pay too much attention to the effects of climate change, which cannot be seen in the short term and more quickly than viruses. As a result, people are more likely to believe that coronaviruses are more serious harm. The fact is that the harms of climate change are chronic, and although people have been discussing this topic for decades, no action or measures have been taken on it. When people don’t learn from the effects of climate change, they don’t realize the seriousness of the situation.
2020 is nothing more than a difficult start. 2020 is a challenge for all mankind. Most people don’t seem to care much about the planet’s ecology and the energy and resources it is increasingly consuming. I personally think that everything that happens in 2020 May be the beginning of the earth’s revolt. It’s clear that the earth is fighting back. According to experts, the earth may be severely short of water and living in a very poor ecological environment in the next decade or so. The earth is like a baby crying all the time, but we have never considered his feelings, now it is really time for all mankind to know that we are facing a crisis, and act to protect our home planet.
People are slow to respond to the effects of climate change, because it doesn’t leave them in the lurch.The virus quickly spread around the world, causing all kinds of panic, because the cases are visual, we know how devastating the consequences can be if we don’t control them, and we know that the virus can get so aggressive that it can threaten people’s lives the next second.But climate change is the result of long-term accumulation, and people are tired of hearing about it.We live in a world where we face different challenges every day, but we can’t wait until we know the disaster is coming, especially climate change.
I think this article gave a very interesting point, is that people not treat the climate change problem as serious as COVID-19. People are trying to find a solution to how to cure the virus, but they don’t find the solution about climate change. Now the TV playing news about the virus every day, but no channel talks about Climate change problems. Virus and climate change both are the problems will prevent human development. The only difference is the virus can cause damage immediately, and climate change is a long term problem. People have to focus on climate change too, the human should not wait until the last second.
I agree with the opinion of this article. When the coronavirus comes, people pay attention too much to the infectious disease and leave out climate change. Actually, climate change also has a big impact on our health. If the environment has a lot of pollutions, people will breathe the dirty air and the respiratory tracts will be infected. Then, people may get a sore throat, even had a serious fever. In this article, the author mentions that the climate crisis has been called a “super wicked problem”, which is an issue that defies simple solutions or silver bullets. “Wicked problem” has a longer time period than coronavirus. If people don’t solve the problem of climate change, it is not only harmful to many people’s health but also harmful to the environment of the ecosystem.
Eugenia’s Grist Reaction:
Regarding the fact that although many have died because of climate change and people around the world have not reacted with such terror to it as they have with the coronavirus, I have one theory. That theory is that people view deaths related to climate change as something natural or inevitable, as most believe climate is something we cannot control. However, because of pollution and contamination we are changing the climate and we are the ones responsible for the deterioration of the atmosphere, change in climate, and the deaths of those people because we haven’t done anything to stop it. As the article says, many believe that climate change, “has long been seen as an approaching risk, one that will only affect people sometime in the future. A little less than half of Americans believe that climate change is harming U.S. residents ‘right now.” And yet it is affecting us right now and if we do not do something, it will end up taking more and more lives. Even though most of us could not go into the bushfires and stop the flames in Australia, the least we can do is raise awareness, inform the population, and speak out so that the people in power are pressured to do something.
I think you may be right, Eugenia, we tend to see climate change related deaths as natural and disease related ones as preventable. What should we do to change this perception? Maybe climate change needs the same kind of discourse that public health has. Your last sentence is also very powerful: “the least we can do is raise awareness, inform the population, and speak out so that the people in power are pressured to do something.”
I agree with the Grist op-ed and the argument that climate change is being pushed aside because it is seen as a future problem. I especially agree with the point in the last paragraph that says “Moreover, the sheer amount of action provoked by the COVID-19 outbreak shows what’s possible if governments and individuals could set aside short-term thinking. ” Doing things such as reducing carbon emissions and investing in renewable energy would have long-term results that could help with climate change, but people worry more about the short-term effects those would have. The short-term effects could be things like less travel, or slower production of products, but if more people could set aside the worry about these effects, we could move closer towards helping climate change.
I really like the practical solutions that you are thinking about here, Julianah. There are short term solutions that we can do, such as reduce long distance travel or at least, travel it a sustainable way. One of the unintended effects of COVID has been reduction of pollution in the atmosphere and water because of reduced carbon emissions.
Alexs Grist Reaction
I think the reason there is so much mobilization and effort in an attempt to stop coronavirus due to the fact that it can affect the ones in control. Climate change is something that is very easy to ignore as we go about our daily lives. I hope that one day there is as much effort put towards climate change as there has been towards coronavirus. But like I’ve said, mankind needs to reprioritize what is important – focusing less on materialistic things and more on the beauty of the natural world around us.
Alex, that would definitely be ideal, wouldn’t it? Hopefully COVID has caused us to reassess our priorities and look more inwards and to the natural world.
Laura Benjaminsen’s Grist Reaction
The main thing I agreed with, in the article was that people don’t treat climate change with as much urgency because people see it as a future threat. It’s hard for people to understand the consequences and dangers of climate change without experiencing it, but once people start to experience those things, it will be too late to do anything about it. The uncertainty of it also is a big issue for people because climate change has been talked about for many years, but people don’t think anything bad has really happened yet because of it, so it’s easy to keep thinking nothing will happen for a while. with the Coronavirus, people can see the effects on a daily basis and it’s a fairly new disease that hasn’t been talked about much. One day there was news about a virus spreading so many people panic because they don’t know what it is or how to protect themselves from it. I believe if people treated climate change with the same urgency as they did with the Coronavirus, there would be a big change in our environment.
That’s true, Laura! Just imagine the climate change solutions if we poured the same funds and attention (or even one half of the funds or attention) in solving global warming.
Dale’s Grist Reaction
I agree with the point in the article that people’s urgency to deal with climate change is not so high. It is difficult to understand the consequences and risks of climate change. And coronavirus, people can see its spread and infection every day, many people feel panic, because they don’t know what it is, and don’t know how to protect themselves from it. But in fact, the harm of the two is the same, but it may only take a few months or years to solve the virus. It will take decades or even a century to tackle climate change.
Dale, I agree with you that the fear element is leading people to feel a certain amount of urgency to solve the corona virus crisis.
Parth’s Grist Reaction
This article is very interesting as it is able to look at climate change in the lens of the COVID-19 virus. This disease has put the world in a very unprecedented state of hysteria and panic, and governments all around the world have worked fast and efficiently to reduce the viruses exposure. The Op-ed brings up some very good points on familiarity being a huge difference in the way people react to the COVID-19 and climate change. I myself have been hearing about climate change since I was young, and agree with Shannon Osaka that climate change has become more desensitizing. I would however, like to add another reason I think that COVID-19 is taken more seriously, and that there is direct correlation between the loss of human lives and the spread of this disease. This allows the disease to be more frightening and not be shackled as much by the politics that control climate change regulations.
Good rebuttal, Parth! But is the way the coronavirus crisis is being reported not being framed within politics and special interests?
Divij’s Grist Reaction
The oped compares how we react to climate change to how we have reacted to corona virus so far. I agree with a point that the article states,”Maibach in the article, people have a tendency to react strongly or overreact to risks that seem new, uncertain, uncontrollable, and life-threatening. COVID-19 displays all of these qualities.” This is just human nature and climate change hasn’t yet affected humans in a manner that corona virus has but eventually it will, and when it does we will have a very similar reaction to it.
Great quote, Divij! You may be right, we’re probably waiting for the tipping point on climate change.
I agree with the argument that humans do not pay too much attention to the effects of climate change, which cannot be seen in the short term and more quickly than viruses. As a result, people are more likely to believe that coronaviruses are more serious harm. The fact is that the harms of climate change are chronic, and although people have been discussing this topic for decades, no action or measures have been taken on it. When people don’t learn from the effects of climate change, they don’t realize the seriousness of the situation.
I like the distinction between short term versus chronic harm, Mingyu!
2020 is nothing more than a difficult start. 2020 is a challenge for all mankind. Most people don’t seem to care much about the planet’s ecology and the energy and resources it is increasingly consuming. I personally think that everything that happens in 2020 May be the beginning of the earth’s revolt. It’s clear that the earth is fighting back. According to experts, the earth may be severely short of water and living in a very poor ecological environment in the next decade or so. The earth is like a baby crying all the time, but we have never considered his feelings, now it is really time for all mankind to know that we are facing a crisis, and act to protect our home planet.
Interesting metaphor! The revenge of the Earth would make for a really scary horror movie.
People are slow to respond to the effects of climate change, because it doesn’t leave them in the lurch.The virus quickly spread around the world, causing all kinds of panic, because the cases are visual, we know how devastating the consequences can be if we don’t control them, and we know that the virus can get so aggressive that it can threaten people’s lives the next second.But climate change is the result of long-term accumulation, and people are tired of hearing about it.We live in a world where we face different challenges every day, but we can’t wait until we know the disaster is coming, especially climate change.
I like your point about the threat of the virus being more visual versus climate change, which can seem more abstract, Jie.
I think this article gave a very interesting point, is that people not treat the climate change problem as serious as COVID-19. People are trying to find a solution to how to cure the virus, but they don’t find the solution about climate change. Now the TV playing news about the virus every day, but no channel talks about Climate change problems. Virus and climate change both are the problems will prevent human development. The only difference is the virus can cause damage immediately, and climate change is a long term problem. People have to focus on climate change too, the human should not wait until the last second.
I agree Summer, the TV channels and media are definitely concentrating on the corona right now.
I agree with the opinion of this article. When the coronavirus comes, people pay attention too much to the infectious disease and leave out climate change. Actually, climate change also has a big impact on our health. If the environment has a lot of pollutions, people will breathe the dirty air and the respiratory tracts will be infected. Then, people may get a sore throat, even had a serious fever. In this article, the author mentions that the climate crisis has been called a “super wicked problem”, which is an issue that defies simple solutions or silver bullets. “Wicked problem” has a longer time period than coronavirus. If people don’t solve the problem of climate change, it is not only harmful to many people’s health but also harmful to the environment of the ecosystem.
Great use of quotes from the article in your reply, Anni!
Eugenia’s Grist Reaction:
Regarding the fact that although many have died because of climate change and people around the world have not reacted with such terror to it as they have with the coronavirus, I have one theory. That theory is that people view deaths related to climate change as something natural or inevitable, as most believe climate is something we cannot control. However, because of pollution and contamination we are changing the climate and we are the ones responsible for the deterioration of the atmosphere, change in climate, and the deaths of those people because we haven’t done anything to stop it. As the article says, many believe that climate change, “has long been seen as an approaching risk, one that will only affect people sometime in the future. A little less than half of Americans believe that climate change is harming U.S. residents ‘right now.” And yet it is affecting us right now and if we do not do something, it will end up taking more and more lives. Even though most of us could not go into the bushfires and stop the flames in Australia, the least we can do is raise awareness, inform the population, and speak out so that the people in power are pressured to do something.
I think you may be right, Eugenia, we tend to see climate change related deaths as natural and disease related ones as preventable. What should we do to change this perception? Maybe climate change needs the same kind of discourse that public health has. Your last sentence is also very powerful: “the least we can do is raise awareness, inform the population, and speak out so that the people in power are pressured to do something.”
I agree with the Grist op-ed and the argument that climate change is being pushed aside because it is seen as a future problem. I especially agree with the point in the last paragraph that says “Moreover, the sheer amount of action provoked by the COVID-19 outbreak shows what’s possible if governments and individuals could set aside short-term thinking. ” Doing things such as reducing carbon emissions and investing in renewable energy would have long-term results that could help with climate change, but people worry more about the short-term effects those would have. The short-term effects could be things like less travel, or slower production of products, but if more people could set aside the worry about these effects, we could move closer towards helping climate change.
I really like the practical solutions that you are thinking about here, Julianah. There are short term solutions that we can do, such as reduce long distance travel or at least, travel it a sustainable way. One of the unintended effects of COVID has been reduction of pollution in the atmosphere and water because of reduced carbon emissions.
Alexs Grist Reaction
I think the reason there is so much mobilization and effort in an attempt to stop coronavirus due to the fact that it can affect the ones in control. Climate change is something that is very easy to ignore as we go about our daily lives. I hope that one day there is as much effort put towards climate change as there has been towards coronavirus. But like I’ve said, mankind needs to reprioritize what is important – focusing less on materialistic things and more on the beauty of the natural world around us.
Alex, that would definitely be ideal, wouldn’t it? Hopefully COVID has caused us to reassess our priorities and look more inwards and to the natural world.