Out of all of the things threatening humanity — more pandemics, artificial intelligence, or a nuclear war — by far the most plausible and scary future is the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to climate change. An article from DailyStar in 2019 shows that, terrifyingly, we have a 19 percent chance of going extinct as soon as 2100 due to a climate crisis. We’re already seeing the disastrous impacts of climate change: Intelligencer writes in 2017 that cities like Miami and even the entire country of Bangladesh don’t have a chance of staying inhabitable for more than the next couple of decades, and that wouldn’t change even if we stopped all carbon emissions today. In New Jersey specifically, the tides will rise quickly in the next 20 to 30 years, threatening infrastructure and lives along our shoreline. Even though the sea level rising gets the most attention from news outlets, we have much, much more to worry about as a result of rising temperatures. 

The most disconcerting and scary part about climate change, however, is that despite all of the catastrophes that await us, no one with the authority to fix the problem, or holds respo

nsibility for causing the most carbon emissions in the first place, is doing anything. The biggest obstacle towards a greener world is rich people themselves, from the corporations they control to the politicians they sway.

Although influential politicians often talk about fixing climate change, perplexingly, they either can’t or won’t take significant action. All too often, they bend to rich peoples’ will, as the wealthy donate to campaigns so that they can keep their carbon emitting privileges. Environmental non-profits try to combat this with fundraising and activism, but they can’t match the amount of money corporation owners pour into stopping climate reforms. Many businesses, from Walmart to Amazon, rely on fossil fuels to make and ship their products. The upcoming 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be about stopping climate change, but without the support of the wealthy, there isn’t much they will be able to do.

People who are wealthy have the biggest carbon footprint of anyone else on earth. They pull off this impressive but unfortunate feat with all of their first class seating, private travel, huge mansions, and costly cars. In fact, The Washington Post reported in 2020 if we want to even slow climate change, the richest one percent of the global population need to make their carbon footprint 30 times smaller than it is now. Stopping global warming altogether would require even bigger changes to wealthy people’s lifestyles, and more importantly, investment into alternative energy sources and other projects that help stop global warming, which don’t have enough funding right now.

The problem is, even though they have incredible amounts of money, not much of it is going to the goal of stopping climate change. Take Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, a

nd his “Earth Fund,” which is supposedly dedicated to stopping climate change. He has pledged 10 billion dollars to be spent towards that goal by 2030, which at first glance seems like a substantial amount. But when you look at his actual net worth, which is almost 200 billion dollars, it’s a very small fraction of what he could actually offer. No one needs a billion dollars in the first place, but if someone does become a multi-billionaire, there should be a huge chunk of that money going towards fixing society’s biggest problem. Buying your seventh beach house won’t give you as much satisfaction as saving the planet in the long run. Not to mention that acquiring more property is worthless if they’re drowned by rising ocean levels in the next few decades.

This is also true with the upper-middle class. Many well-off people are not donating to help stop climate change, nor are they making substantial changes to their own lifestyles. The problem of climate change is often cast aside, as if it’ll go away if we just don’t think about it, or if we simply use metal straws (before this becomes too much of a hassle, of course). With that mindset, society as a whole starts to push the notion of rising temperatures and sea levels away into the future, to be dealt with another day. If anyone gets into the position where they have hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars of disposable income, a much bigger percentage of that income should be used to fix climate change. 

Princeton, of course, is an affluent town. Almost everyone who lives in the Princeton School district has enough income to shop at organic stores or donate money to organizations fixated on ending global warming. People in this region are usually in the top few percentiles of earners in the nation — we should be able to switch to electric cars and build solar panels for our houses. We have the luxury of being able to live more sustainably, and we owe it to the planet to do it. You don’t have to be a billionaire to help save the planet.

Still, extremely rich people aren’t going to do that on their own, especially when their corporations are more profitable than ever. So, what’s the solution here? Looking very broadly, a few simple answers pop out. A carbon tax on private planes and other carbon emitters already exists, but it could be raised a lot. This tax would make it a lot more expensive every time they want to use fossil fuels in their factories. If it really is cheaper to switch to green energy, you can be sure rich people will do it. Additionally, raising taxes in general for the rich would help. Millionaires and billionaires are not going to become homeless if more of their income is put towards combating global warming. Unfortunately, students at PHS aren’t members of Congress or other high-ranking politicians — at least, not yet. But we can do much more to 

help force wealthy people to expend more money and effort into fighting climate change. We can pressure Congress to pass those carbon taxes and raise taxes as a whole. We can let wealthy people know we will no longer tolerate them standing by, watching the Earth slowly fall apart, and only doing the bare minimum to stop it. At the end of the day, rich people will benefit from using fossil fuels and other climate destroyers and, for a while, will be immune to the effects those actions cause. We need to make sure wealthy people, whether they are Princeton residents or billionaires, are standing up to climate change, especially when there are some who don’t have the luxury of doing so.

Alexander Marguilis's Work