The importance of caring

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Lots of information, but little awareness

Almost every day, there are newspapers, news on television, or on our phones in which we bump into talking about the needing for a change for what concerns our relationship with nature.

They also try to warn people about the possible tragic future events that in a few decades, probably could affect our planet and our lives. Many times, that news just go inside our heads and quit very fast, without any real impact on people’s lives.

The 2009 Eurobarometer about Climate Change

Let’s go back to a Eurobarometer published in 2009, and make some considerations:

In 2009, the sad fact is that, probably, people didn’t really care about climate change. Didn’t really think that our future wouldn’t be safe in that condition, that our nephews and sons were in danger ad have a fragile future slipping through their fingers.

In Europe, just 50% of the people considered climate change the most important problem on our planet. Sweden was the nation in which the problem was more considered (82%), in Turkey the score was just 32%.

But the real problem wasn’t strictly this, because other countries simply considered other two topics (economic problems and poverty) more important, but they still consider it, in fact, 67% of EU citizens considered climate change a very serious topic.

The real problem is that there was an important decrease in the concerns about climate change in all the countries except Sweden. Another critical point was that the major part of EU citizens, considered themselves really prepared about the causes and the consequences of climate change, with an average score between 52% and 56%. But was this really in practice?

Is the situation changed?

Going back nowadays, in 2021, so 12 years later and many tragic events, and also with the help of many activists, the situation is changed:

“A new Eurobarometer survey published today shows that European citizens believe climate change is the single most serious problem facing the world. More than nine out of ten people surveyed consider climate change to be a serious problem (93%), with almost eight out of ten (78%) considering it to be very serious. When asked to pick out the single most serious problem facing the world, over a quarter (29%) chose either climate change (18%), deterioration of nature (7%) or health problems due to pollution (4%).”

It’s time to turn theory into practice

These numbers and questionaries give us an image of Europe both positive and negative. People know and apparently cares about climate change, that is quite a heartwarming perspective. The sad fact is that maybe we don’t know and care as we should.

We don’t, because if we would, then maybe consumers would decrease faster, and also the power of fast fashion, the useless loss of running water every day.

There would be more attention about what we buy, how we live every day and we would hear more seriously the precious words of activists all around the world. We all know that there is a problem, that we must find altogether the power in ourselves to make small steps every day. Let’s transform theory into practice for a better future.