Use of first person in essay regarding humans

I am writing a huge research paper on Climate change/ global warming. My main paper concentrates on the fact that Humans are responsible for this issue. Throughout my essay I use the pronoun "WE" to refer to us as humans. I think that it fits well with the paper and it shows a sense of faultiness/ blame. ex: We are the ones contributing to this problem.

I use it a lot and I do not know if this is okay considering its a rule of thumb not to write a paper in 1st POV. -thanks

I'd suggest you refrain from using the pronoun "we" if it's a research paper. It makes it look informal and not academic. Hope this helps.

Mich, it really depends upon the type of research paper that you are writing. If it is a personal opinion research paper, then it is alright to refer to first person pronouns once in a while. While academic research papers would rather that you do not use any pronouns at all to dissipate any bias in the reporting, I can understand why this might be difficult for you to do. Research writers who play safe tend to refer to a thesaurus instead. It helps them skip pronoun usage while varying the reference to "humans" or "human beings" in the paper. If you are worried about the pronoun use, then I think the latter is the way for you to in referencing your paper. It will help to increase the writing profile of the research and deliver the idea that you spent a great amount of time in researching, developing, and finalizing the details of your paper. You could instead say that "Individuals are to blame" or "People are to blame". That way you refer to the specific cause without creating a bias in the presentation by involving yourself as a part of the reference point.