Everyday the world we live in changes. Some of these changes are small while others our impacting our health and futures. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” –Dr. Seuss. I can’t think of a better way to say it, especially when talking about the environment. The problem with the environment is not that people don’t care enough to change it; it’s that people aren’t educated enough to know that they need to care to change it. We cannot know what we don’t know; if we don’t know about something we can’t be expected to care to change it. Though people are uneducated about the problems we have at hand and even some still seem to not care when informed, I still hold out hope. There are people who care, and those people will make a difference because every small difference leads to a bigger difference. “Attitudes are also changing… the thousands of protests against chemical plants and waste incinerators show the extent of concern about the environmental health.” (320-321, When a Billion Chinese Jump). I hold out hope that we can change the global environmental problems we faced and make a difference. Though this won’t be easy to change it won’t be impossible. Small changes that lead to bigger changes are being made. The book Collapse tells us about changes that China has made to change the environmental problem at hand. In 1973 China established Leading Group for Environmental Protection, which later became State
As the world looks on, people start to realize that the problem of environmental pollution is a global
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.” The Lorax said this quote in a very popular book and movie called The Lorax. This quote shows mankind that if we do not care about our environment, the world is only going to go downhill from here. In response to the Lorax, we should encourage our government to better govern how we use our natural resources. The government needs to maintain a good state of control in the environment or else we will destroy our world. As a nation, we are not respecting our world as we should be with recycling, and proactive steps to stop climate change. Our government is fully responsible for fostering green practices because they are able to control how our nation utilizes our energy, water and land.
Have you ever thought about how your actions or opinions affected the environment around you? We’re constantly unaware of what we do that impacts the environment’s condition. One author named Wendell Berry blames the public in his article regarding the way society and the industry has treated the environment and its natural resources. This raises concerns whether we should be putting more importance on the economy or the land that we live in for the sake of our future survival. While I agree with most of Berry’s points and perspectives I slightly disagree with a few of his opinions, but nonetheless he brings up a great matter in today’s modern society.
As The World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial, by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan, is a graphic novel about the state of our environment. They use cartoons and abundant sarcasm to convey the message that the attempts people are making to save the environment are not enough to do any real good. Their message challenges both those of Edward O. Wilson and the University of Connecticut in that Jensen and McMillan’s ideas are much more radical and suggest that the ideas posed by Wilson and UConn, such as the importance of recycling and sustainability efforts, are ineffective at saving the environment. We must resolve the challenges posed by Jensen and McMillan so that all of the ideas put forth in the sources may work together rather than against each other. In order to do this we must accept that some of the ideas given by Jensen and McMillan may be too extreme to do any real good and that the ideas suggested by Wilson and UConn, though slightly ineffective, are nonetheless important steps in saving the environment. Taken alone, none of their ideas will save the environment; instead it is necessary to combine the ideas of Wilson, UConn, and Jensen and McMillan in order to create a more realistic plan to save the planet.
Americans, as a whole, do not care about the environment anymore. When we watch the news or simply talk about our day, there are always more pressing topics that come up. However, as a nation, the threat of a failing environment seems to be forgotten because the effects are not as obvious as other threats. Bill McKibben’s “Waste Not, Want Not” discusses how much time, money, resources, and people America has actually wasted and how little effort has been made to try to change. McKibben causes readers to think it is too late to save the environment from our wastefulness because we put our efforts into systems that do not help the environment, spend more money and resources than necessary, and refuse to acknowledge how much were wasting.
Subject: Reflects how these collapse of historical societies features manifest themselves in American society to gain better idea of what our future holds.
In Michael Pollan's article “Why Bother?” he discusses how climate change is a serious threat to humanity and needs to be addressed immediately. Pollan begins to discuss possible solutions but also realizes that these “solutions” may not be easily achieved. There is no way to eliminate people who make a conscious effort to help the advancement of climate change, but it is still important for others to attempt to make changes to help save the environment.
While I started my volunteer educational program, another man was well ensconced in his own. Al Gore took up a cause that many people seemed to be ignoring, our environment. The issues of climate change and general environmentalism are very important to me. I see similarities between the challenges of managing a clean environment for our globe and the challenges of managing good health to me. Through concerted efforts to make routine changes we have the capacity to live more ecologically friendly, and often healthier lives. I have seen that with just a few adjustments, I can control my diabetes to the point where most people do not even know I have it. Likewise, I believe that if we commit to making fundamental changes in the way we go about our lives, we can easily remedy several environmental issues we face today. By going to Berkeley Law School and focusing on Environmental Law, I can apply my own life’s lessons
This message from 1972 still holds true to this day. If you truly care about the environment you must take action. But can one person make a difference? Yes, one person can make a difference. However, it isn't about one person being able to fix the entire planet. It is about the impact that one person can have on his/her community to start a movement. All it takes is one person to stand up and become a leader in their community to start making a difference. Anybody can make a difference. Even I can make a difference in my own community by doing small things such as recycling and cutting down on waste. By choosing to recycle, I can cut down on the number of trash that gets thrown into a landfill and allow for materials to be re-used in future products. I could install showerheads in my home that cut down on water use to waste less water when showering. There are many things I can do to help better my own environment, but what matters is that others do the same. If everyone tried to help their own environment we would live in a much greener world. Sadly, there are many people like the Once-ler that will not help their environment due to ignorance or corporate greed until it is too
Around the world, humans are aware of the environmental crisis going on, yet, the issue is brushed under the rug and ignored. This issue is ignored due to the fact that some people are unwilling to change their lifestyles, it is expensive to be environmentally friendly, and there is a lack of effort towards change worldwide. Scientific evidence has proven that there is a crisis happening, but people show disinterest in it. Some people feel helpless because there is no way that the individual effort that is made can possibly make a global difference.
I know today that it takes more than activism to create change. Hailing from a family deeply involved in environmental politics and science, the wellbeing of the environment has always been something I’ve
Although Greenland and Australia are thousands of miles apart and very different in geography, they also have many similarities. In his book “Collapse”, Jared Diamond shows that both countries have the five factors that can contribute to a society’s collapse. Greenland’s Norse society already collapsed a long time ago, while Australia is still a First World country going strong. If some things there don’t change, the country’s living standard will go down and there could be major problems.
By 2006 there were 6000 registered environmental groups in China. They are growing in numbers, influence and assertiveness. These groups are made up of people that are now beginning to understand the consequences of rapid growth and
We live in a world that offers so many things to us. A home, food, water, life itself, yet we don 't take much care of it and are destroying it instead. The presence of pollution has been around for such a great amount of time now that you would expect us as humans, to start noticing the mass destruction we are causing and start doing something about it. Glaciers are melting, water levels are rising, the water and air around is being polluted if it 's not polluted already. There is little being done to try and stop or at least slow down this fatal event. If we do not start taking care of our own home, we will soon be left with no home at all, and the only one’s we can blame for that, is ourselves.
As a communist state becoming more international acknowledged as a state China had to make major changes as a government and it had to come externally. China “began to manifest an awareness of environmental problems in the early 1970’s” (Ross, 810). This was because China had gained a seat in the UN and was working with the U.S during this time. Right before the 1972 Stockholm conference China had created a domestic agency that worked with environmental issues so that they had a voice in the conference. This conference came to the existence of SEPA which had policies with emission permits that was modeled by economically advanced countries such as the U.S (Ross, 812). SEPA was a cost to the state and could restrain a growing economy which was not in China’s best interest. Right before the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development China and 41 other developing countries made a declaration. This declaration “acknowledged the need for international co-operation to promote environmental protection and sustainable development while demanding financial assistance” (Ross, 814). This was also mentioned by the top leaders of China that economic development would reject in any interference with domestic politics for environmental policy (Ross, 814). China eventually reached a deal with a 9 year plan which shows that China is not against environmental