Who is Responsible?

 In this day an age I hear climate change pop up almost everyday in the news, and it just seems like things are getting worse and worse. I have rarely seen and "good" regarding it. We see mostly all of the west coast is currently in flames; there are people dying and hundreds of thousands of homes are being destroyed. Saying that we could have prevented this, I don't know, but I choose to believe that our actions have not helped the problem in any way shape or form. 

 With that being said, the questions regarding who is responsible seems to be a touchy subject. I believe that we should all be responsible for our own actions. As a child growing up we learn this concept, it is drilled into our brains, so why not apply it to this? If a child punches someone and that person now gets a black eye, the person who threw the punch is responsible. Why should that be any different for our actions regarding climate change? We should be able to apply this ideology to our own actions, whether good or bad, we are responsible for them. The article also brought up the point of what about previous generations, who is responsible? In the article it is clear that the Industrial Revolution caused serious negative effects on our environment, but we wouldn't be where we are today, for example technology wise, without it. Also, one can't change the past, so I believe that the only way to move forward is to start making better decisions now. 

I don't think it is right to place the burden of previous generations on those today to try and makeup for all the bad that was caused. I think of that as saying your relative stole an object, they now pass and you find said object and now you're facing the consequences that your relative would have faced. To me that would just make no sense. You didn't commit the crime so why should you have to pay for someone else's mistakes. 

Earlier I mentioned how we should all be responsible for our own actions, with that being said is it now our job to have duties to protect future people, and if not whose is it? I think that we should all try and do our part to better our environment, regardless of future people (I mean who knows if they'll even exists). The article mentions the idea of "polluters pay", and I agree with this. In a perfect society this makes sense, but trying to implement this into the society that we live in today just doesn't seem realistic. Unless some punishment or law is made for people who don't oblige then I can't see this ever happening. The article mentioned that the wealthy should pay because they're in a better position to do so. I agree and at the same time don't agree with this statement. Those who are of lower class or say homeless, most definitely shouldn't have to take on the burden of others, but I don't know if it is necessarily fair to say that the burden should be put on the advantage. Saying that would make me a hypocrite because earlier I mentioned how we should all be responsible for our own, and just our own actions. I don't have an exact answer on who should take on others burdens, but if we can figure out a way to minimize that potential burden by all doing our part-I would say that would be my first step. 

-Lauryn