When I was seven, we had to do a presentation in school. I asked my dad for help choosing a topic, and he suggested climate change. We talked about it a lot. I thought that once people realised there was an issue, we would fix it. The prize went to a girl who did her presentation on surfing in Cornwall.

Still, I wouldn’t say that this was when I became disillusioned with the climate crisis.

When I was twelve, I went vegetarian. Now to be fair, I’m a hypocrite. I think nothing of eating palm oil and avocados flown in from Peru. I wanted to make a point or maybe to make myself feel better. But my family kept eating meat, as did the rest of the world.

When I was fifteen, Greta Thunberg took the world by storm, and I thought our generation would fix it. Then I began to blame older generations, placing the responsibility and failure to act on them.

When I was seventeen, I began to get angry at corporations for fuelling the climate crisis, at capitalism, at the 1% committing these carbon abuses, and at the 99% who would suffer. BP invented the idea of ‘carbon footprint’, a marketing scheme looking to place responsibility for the climate crisis on us, not them. 

I began to think this wasn’t my fault, that I am not responsible.

And I’m not. I’m eighteen. I didn’t cause the climate crisis – none of us did.

Indeed, I think I first became disillusioned with activism, with environmentalism, when I realised this was so much bigger than just me, that I would never feel the brunt of climate change’s impact. 

I was talking to someone recently, however, and I asked them, ‘Why do you think the climate crisis has become so controversial?’ Their answer: blame.

Activists blame climate change deniers, politicians blame corporations, and corporations blame consumers; consumers blame the media, the young blame the old, the rich blame the poor, and the poor blame the rich.

Indeed, I realised just how guilty I was of this. I looked to blame everyone in sight for the climate crisis, understanding that I was complicit but rejecting the responsibility.

How do you remedy the fact that you are not responsible, but you are complicit, and people are being hurt?

Well, 90% of the time, I ignore it. I can’t claim that the environment crosses my mind every day or that it is even my top priority when it comes to world issues. Nor do I feel guilty for this – Oxford is already hard enough!

But I do feel that what is happening is wrong. Yes, the world will keep spinning; we will not all die, nor every species, and mass extinction events have occurred throughout history.

I think the issue, though, the difference, is that we have the power to stop it. And to me, it feels wrong not to use that power when lives are being destroyed.

This is why the government’s recent Public Order Act that restricts protests scares me. I’m not interested in the rights and wrongs of protesting. The bill reduces an individual’s power to gain attention and create change larger than them. So, what is the point of trying?

Why would a government go to this length to stop protests despite the institutional racism, misogyny, and homophobia this law will support?

Why wouldn’t they want to reduce the production of fossil fuels? Renewable sources might have kept our energy bills down.

Why is our government so determined to ignore the issue?

These are scary questions to consider, and they are why I feel so conflicted. I’m not responsible for the climate crisis. I care about people. I have a platform which I can use.

If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’re just as confused as I am. How do we make a change in a debate so polarised?

For me, at least, thinking about it is the first step. The second is to stop blaming the past and think about the future we want to create.  

Yes, I’m scared, but I’m also hopeful. I don’t think we need to act drastically, I do believe we need to act soon. Talking about it, getting other people to talk about it – to care about it – is potentially our biggest strength.

This is just one person’s opinion and, honestly, a plug to come and write for the new environment section. But every time I feel this is pointless, I try to remember that the power to change something, everything, is out there. Until that is gone, there is still a point to all of this.