7 Years Left
By: Rosie Moon
Tags: United Arab Emirates, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Travel Journalism, Climate Change

7 Years Left

With climate change and sustainability increasingly becoming a hot-topic for travel journalists, it was only a matter of time until I looked into it myself… Rosie Moon Dec 24, 2020·6 min read

In primary school, ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’ was the tagline they had us deeply internalise about how to help reduce increasing landfill waste. Moving up to secondary school, I vaguely remember learning about the damaging effects of deforestation in Geography, as well as the limitations of fossil fuels and the varying amounts of renewable energy sources that were taught to me in GCSE Science lessons. As I got older, sustainability and eco-tourism took up a substantial part of my teachings during Travel and Tourism A-Level. So, looking back, climate change and global warming have always been issues that I’ve been aware of to some extent. But in the ignorant bliss of pre-adulthood, I’d always felt as though these were issues that would never have an effect during my lifetime.

As I’ve grown older (and hopefully somewhat wiser), it appears to me that these issues are no longer just issues we read in books or see on the TV. At the end of 2019, scientists announced that the damage that climate change is having on the Earth, will become irreversible in a limited amount of years. The Earth’s deadline is viewable from the digital clock display that’s taken centre stage in the city of Manhattan, counting down the years, days, hours, minutes and seconds until this point — from when I’m writing, the time left reads at 7 years, 8 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes and 50 seconds. From this, the realisation of the potential catastrophes that global warming will have on us, has seen sustainability become the forefront of ordinary people’s conversations, big-boy corporations’ projections and travel journalists’ focus.

It’s a common assumption that fossil fuels and their damaging effect on the atmosphere are the main contributors to global warming. Available on Spotify, Myles Allen draws attention to the process of decarbonisation, which can strip fossil fuels of their carbon emissions and place the element back underground. Whilst the re-planting of trees can slow down the process of global warming, his TED talk claims that by decarbonising fossil fuels, global warming will essentially draw to a halt. However, the issue lies with lack of adequate funding — fossil fuel companies have known this information for years but don’t have the financial resources to do anything about it. It could be argued that, with fossil fuels predicted to run out by 2060, that maybe fossil fuel companies don’t see much point in investing in something which is already declining in availability. As populations continue to grow across the globe, there’s no doubt that the fossil fuel consumption will continue to grow, potentially seeing oil and gas resources running out even earlier than what has been predicted.

The Netflix documentary released earlier this year, ‘David Attenborough: A Life on our planet,’ can be described as the natural historians’ witness statement on the damage that we’ve placed on our eco-system and the future implications of this. Most shockingly, he speaks about the fourth mass extinction that’s been predicted by scientists to take place within the next 100 years. During the latter half of the programme, he optimistically offers ways in which we can try and mend the planet — the main point being, that cutting out fossil fuels and switching towards renewable energy resources is a main contributor in doing this. In an ideal world, if we completely convert to renewable natural resources within the next 50 years, energy supplies will be cheaper, cities will be cleaner and most importantly, the energy supply will never run out.