John Broome, "The Effects of Climate Change"

John Broome says "The costs of mitigating climate change are the sacrifices the present generation will have to make to reduce greenhouse gases. We will have to travel less and better insulate our homes. We will have to eat less red meat. We will have to live less lavishly." Basically, in order for the future generations of people to live "better lives", we must presently stop ourselves from overindulging and we have to be considerate of the people of the future. We cannot just think of the present and live in the moment, as many of us do. You have all heard "We only have one life, we should live it to the fullest". Well, this is a selfish thought to Broome because then we are not thinking of others, only ourselves. When we only think of ourselves, then we tend to harm others. "...sometimes you cannot avoid harming someone, and sometimes you may do it accidentally without realizing it. But whenever you cause harm, you should normally compensate the victim." Since we are causing harm to the future generation of people, Broome suggests that we change our way of life to incorporate the needs of the future. We cannot just worry about the children that are living now, we have to make the world a better place for the children who will be born in the next years.
The money market displays how people think; in terms of how great the benefits are now, compared to later. If we take care of the children now, then there will be less sick elderly folk later. If we can become wealthy now, then who cares about being rich when we are old and wrinkled? We are in a state of mind where we just want to live for the moment, because this is the time when we experience many things and want to enjoy every moment of it. People are afraid of what will happen in the future, that they would rather just enjoy the time now, in kind of a "been there, done that" mentality. If anything happens, at least they got to do what they wanted, right? This is a selfish way to think, but people will be people and this is just how the world is. Not everybody will live for a long period of time. Not every child that can be born, will be born. There has to be natural disasters which will affect birth rates and the lives of people. As harsh and as sad as it may sound, that is life. I believe that whatever happens, happens for a reason. People see the benefit of living their life now, concerning those who they love; rather than the people in the future, people they do not know and will not know. We cannot help everybody though, we can only do so much and help those that are with us now. We are not super heroes, when our time is up; it is up. The future generations of people will be able to take care of themselves. Just as we have faced many problems, people in the future will face problems. Whether the problems occurred because of past decisions or not, they will fight through it if they want to live. We, in the present time, should worry about what is affecting us right now. We will not live 100 years from now; so when we deal with our problems, only then can we help others.