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When shopping around Fort Collins, you may have noticed that stores now charge a disposable bag fee in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. The City of Fort Collins is trying to do its part to bring the United States down from being ranked No. 2 as the worst global polluting country in the world, second to China.

Experts are pointing to a drastic decline in environmental health, so much that Earth’s environment and weather are already visibly changing. We are feeling the effects right now, which has eroded many folks’ hope that any significant environmental change will ever occur.

There is also the fact that significant change relies on a vast number of humans being on the same page in making efforts to adjust their lifestyles and corporate heads to change their production processes to be more environmentally friendly.

Unfortunately, humans are stubborn creatures. Change is difficult. The future is often thrown to the side for the more appealing now.

All of this doubt in ever achieving a better environmental trajectory leads to plenty of “what if” questions. What if Fort Collins had implemented this disposable bag fee decades ago? What if the government was more mindful of climate change years ago and sought to find alternative sources of power and ways to reduce our carbon footprint?

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is today,” said Dale Lockwood, an academic coordinator for Colorado State University’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability and associate professor.

“The pessimistic outlook I had going into this article and going into my discussion with Lockwood is the problem. While there is political polarization on the issue, most people in the country do believe in climate change. It is the act of caring, the act of making changes in our daily lives that will help our confidence rather than destroy it.”

Lockwood said changes to people’s habits in reducing their carbon footprint should be slow, much like someone phasing out an addiction. Quitting “cold turkey,” as he put it, is much more difficult than it is if one were to slowly make a change over a period of time.

According to Lockwood, 40% of the climate outcome in the U.S. is related to individual choices. Lockwood suggested that we should be mindful of small things like bag usage at the grocery store and trying to buy food grown in the country instead of buying foreign-grown, as foreign-grown food creates a larger carbon footprint.

One of the biggest challenges with environmental sustainability in the U.S. is the politicization of the issue. That 40% outcome is up to people that are split in many directions on how they perceive climate change, so turning that 40% into a positive environmental outcome feels nearly impossible.

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published a climate change belief estimation with the results showing the national average of climate change belief was 72% in 2021. This study found that while 65% of the nation was worried about global warming in 2021, 34% was not. Only 47% of people thought global warming would harm them personally.

Remember, people tend to think about the now, not the future.

The pessimistic outlook I had going into this article and going into my discussion with Lockwood is the problem. While there is political polarization on the issue, most people in the country do believe in climate change. It is the act of caring, the act of making changes in our daily lives that will help our confidence rather than destroy it. 

“It would be absolutely insane for me to teach (courses about sustainability) if there wasn’t a solution or a way out of this,” Lockwood said.

As with many issues, it comes down to education. Simply believing what your parents parrot after watching Fox News is not getting educated. Rather, it is a hindrance. Knowing what small things you can do on an individual basis to save the environment can literally make a world of difference.

Reach Brendan Henry at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @BrendanHenryRMC.