The Environment is Dead and Dying

Happy New Year everyone! I thought I'll kick off the New Year with one controversial topic, one that is debatable and one that I am very familiar with. I wrote this in July of 2009 and thought I would share it with you now. It's rather long, but encompasses the vast broadness of the subject. Enjoy and comment.


"I recently thought about the most important things in our world, Things that we could not live without. These most important things are under appreciated and taken for granted. I decided to write this to show my concern for the world and how we should fix it. I narrowed the most important things down to four. These four subjects are not in order from most important to least important because there is no order. There can never be an order to this, these all are the #1 important thing on earth and everyone is taking them for granted.

Air.Trees.Water.Animals

What do humans survive on? What do we breathe everyday and every moment that we are alive? Air. Our air in todays life is not as clean as the air even back in the 1950's. (which were not that long ago) The ozone and carbon dioxide levels in the air nowadays are dangerous and is dirtying the air. Ozone is good, when we're talking about the atmosphere but when we're talking about in the air we breathe...it's not a good thing. It is harmful to plants, animals, and most of all humans. The air we breathe is not clean, and unless we stop, it will continue to get dirtier. The things that create the most pollution are cars (which comes from the fuel which is a totally different subject in itself) and smokestacks.

The average adult human breathes gallons of air a day. The affects of the ozone and the carbon dioxide in the air can do many harmful things to the body. Your lung function reduces, you can experience "shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, fatigue, headaches, nausea, chest pain, and eye and throat irritation" especially in places like Los Angeles, California or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are the most air polluted cities in the United States. This is especially bad for young children because their respiratory systems are just beginning to develop.

To stop the airborne pollution America should kick it old school. Do you honestly need to drive yourself to the McDonnalds down the street? (Do you even need that McDonnalds?) Can't you ride your bike, walk, or even use public transportation when you can? What do you think people did before the 1920's when automobiles first came out? They did it some other way. Also if we're going to continue using cars we should use other sources of energy such as air and water (i recommend air). Such cars have already been invented that run just on water or air, you could also use an electric car or just simply carpool. And simply the smokestacks can use other fuels. Smokers can stop polluting the air with their smoke (plus it's bad for them) And you can also turn of anything that uses electricity when you're not using it because that also pollutes the air. And much more that i probably can't think of right now.

What produces the oxygen that we breathe? Yes, i think that trees do that. Deforestation is what its called and it's the reason a lot of the animals in the amazon are being forced out of there homes. Well we need that wood to make furniture, and houses, and paper so that's a good reason to keep cutting down tree's right? No. Well, i also need more land to grow my crops so I need this forest removed. Or I want this tree cut down because I would love to make it in charcoal, or maybe just have the wood to burn in my chimney just because "it looks pretty". I want a Wal-Mart right where this forest is! Cut it down, we can just burn that wood, who needs it? What’s so important about the trees?

Trees are one of the most important things in our world and because we are cutting down the trees at an uncanny rate. There are many reasons on why trees are important to not only the earth but to human life. The most important thing that they do is produce oxygen, and without oxygen we don’t live. The average tree produces as much oxygen in just one season as ten people inhale in one year. The tree’s also act like a big filter and cleans our dirty air. Trees also absorb some of the carbon dioxide in the air to produce their food (and as we all know, carbon dioxide is a leading cause in global warming.) Trees also do many other things like cleaning soil, providing shade, and stop erosion. If a tree is cut down the nutrients in the ground are not going to be nurtured from the tree anymore, which makes it fragile and brittle and eventually results in erosion. I also do not like toilet paper even though we must use it I wish it could be recycled or something. I think that America should adapt the bidet.

“As of 2009, between 25% and 50% of the toilet paper used in the United States comes from tree farms in the U.S. and South America, with most of the rest coming from second growth forests and only a small percentage coming from virgin forests.”

As in my previous notes I had written about trees and the issue at hand.

“You can't stop cutting the tree's down in Georgia and keep cutting down the tree's in Maine. You gotta stop cutting tree's down, period. There's no slack. There's no in-between, there's no controversy, there's no attitude, there's nothing towards it except the fact that we need to stop cutting the tree's down. We must stop cutting the tree's down, or we are going to die.”

There are alternatives to paper. Paper has not been around forever. The Native Americans used skins and things like that. Paper can be recycled more. People can use alternatives like chalk boards, hemp, or Kenaf. A piece of paper should always be recycled after its use. Homework is a big waste of paper and people just throw away pieces of paper like they’re man made.

“ You cant cut down 3 billion tree's every morning and expect to maintain a life support system on Earth, because without those tree's, we're doomed.”

The same thing is happening with the water in the world. Water is the single most important element for human existence or animal existence for that matter. About 25% of the average human body is solid matter and 75% is water. Earth is the only one so far known that can support and holds water. Water is the foundation of all living things on earth. 70% – 75% of the earth is covered in water; the other 30% - 25% is land. Strange isn’t it? 75% of our bodies are made of water and so is the earth. But anyways, back to the point, water is being used like its man made.

There are many ways that people waste water without realizing it. Each time you flush the toilet (unless you are using a newer low-water toilet) it can waste about 5-7 gallons of water. I guess the phrase “If It’s Yellow, Let it Mellow. If Its Brown, Flush it Down.” That may be a little unsettling to some people but why flush until it’s 100% necessary. Another waste of water is showers/bath’s. Bath time is not “fun-time”. The average shower user uses 1/5 the amount of water people use when taking a bath. The average bath takes up 60 gallons but the average 10-minute shower uses 25 gallons. But just keep this in mind, the average showerhead releases 2.5 gallons of water each minute. Hot water uses a lot more energy to heat, and plus do you always need a steaming hot shower? Warm or in-between is always good too. The most obvious and most repeated is leaving the water running when you don’t need to use it. Like when you are shaving, brushing your teeth, or washing dishes. If you don’t want to use up all the water you can turn it off when not using it. The United States uses about 346,000 million gallons of fresh water every day.

Those are the everyday ways that one could stop the over usage of water, but there is also the issue of pollution in the water. People are dumping things into the oceans and killing the fish and other sea creatures. Raw sewage and ecological waste taints the water. Ever see a cartoon or TV show when the family goes fishing and someone gets a tire or a boot instead of a fish? This is just a small portion of what is going on. Water pollution is a major problem in the world today. The pollution of water is reported to be a worldwide cause of death resulting in more than 14,000 people dying each day. In a recent national report on the water quality of American water 45% of researched stream miles were polluted. 47% of researched lakes were polluted and 32% of bays were polluted. There are different types of water pollution like when oil refineries discharge wastewater, runoff from agricultural areas draining into a diver, storm water being washed off from streets, highways, lawns, and parking lots, or oil spills. Water pollution is caused because of the chemicals in the runoff or discharge.

“Its not a question if you whether you want to fix the water, you got to fix the water.”

All of the things I’ve talked about in some way have been connected to human and animal existence on the earth. And most of the things I’ve talked about are killing the animals and humans. Why are animals dying in the Amazon rainforest? They’re dying because of the pollution of the water. They’re dying because of the bulldozing of the trees. Animals that live in those trees and have lived there whole life around that tree will have nowhere to go once they cut down more trees. The special plants and foods they have survived on are being cut down and destroyed. They have nothing to eat and nothing to sleep on at night.

Animals have been along side human life since the beginning of mankind. They all depend on each other and are all part of the ecological chain of existence. It is vital to make sure that no more animals become extinct. Food chains are an important part of life. If the grasshopper population was endangered than all the animals that eat it would either need another food source of become extinct too.

I would think that hunting is one of the greatest reasons that there are endangered species. I don’t see how a person could go seal clubbing. If this keeps up the harbor seal will be on the endangered list. How can someone go to the North Pole and kill a polar bear? The polar bear is now on the vulnerable list of extinction. Who could kill an elephant just for its ivory tusks? Elephants are soon to be on the endangered list. Why would someone go and kill that leopard in the jungle? They are now on the near threatened list.

The thing I can think of most is money. People today are abandoning the old ways of doing things and taking the easy way out. Money is the root of all evil in the world. The world could never have a car that ran on air or water because then gas companies would lose money and lose jobs, which will cause unemployment rates to go sky-high through the roof resulting in a depression. Electric companies will never be replaced with wind or solar energy because people will never want to convert to a new way of doing things. Why change from electricity if it’s working just fine right? Will we ever go back to the horse and buggy? No way! People want something that will get them there as fast as possible. They want to speed 90 miles per hour on the highway instead of going the 60 that is the law.


I’m probably going to write a lot more on the subject but I just thought that I would get what was on my mind out there. If we fix these problems we will live in the way earth is supposed to be.

If we fix the Air, Trees, Water, and Animals (ATWA) we will be All The Way Alive.

Happy New Year,

Jeremiah

atwa.be
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