Most humans don’t know this, but we are harming the beautiful planet we live on. Whether you realize it or not, we are harming ourselves and setting ourselves up for disaster. We have been doing our world wrong since the beginning of time; the industrial revolution boosted the greenhouse gasses emitted in our atmosphere. At that time, we never knew the harm we were doing; what was carbon dioxide at that time? What harm is it doing to our planet Earth? What is the American government doing to lessen the amount of pollutants we release. The government is not involved enough in helping to make the Earth healthier.
Belgium has successful waste management systems, Norway is committed to stop the sale of fueled cars by the year 2040, the German government is aggressively pursuing a transition to renewable fuels such as solar and wind technology. These nations are taking action to make our world green, but what is the United States’ government doing? Well, in 1970, President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA in July; five months later, EPA began operating. EPA, known as the Environmental Protection Agency, is the most responsible for limiting the effects of pollution in our government. EPA does many things. According to Investopedia, “it regulates manufacturing, processing, distribution, and the use of chemicals and other pollutants” (Kenton). The Environment Protection Agency’s main mission is to protect us humans and the environment.
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Even though we have the EPA, I still believe we can do so much more. We can have national clean-the-area days once or twice a month, make it mandatory to have recycling bins in small towns and all through big cities. We could even build more recycling plants that run off of clean fuel. It would also be very helpful if solar panels and small wind turbines were more affordable, so a wide variety of people would be able to obtain it.
As far as efforts to reduce pollution go, “the EPA oversees a number of programs intended to promote energy efficiency, environmental stewardship, sustainable growth, air and water quality, and pollution prevention” (Kenton). The programs are: the EPA Safer Choice Program, the Energy Star Program, the Smart Growth Program, WaterSense, and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. According to Investopedia, The Safer Choice Program is a product labelling program that allows shoppers to pick the chemically safest products. The Energy Star program helps shoppers choose energy efficient appliances. The Smart Growth program supports sustainable community development. WaterSense encourages highly efficient water use through irrigation systems, toilets, and faucets. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System regulates the discharge of pollutants. These programs aid our nation take a step on the path to a sustainable and healthy world.
Although these programs are useful, we can do much better. Other countries are doing things that limit the amount of air pollutants like carbon dioxide. Norway, for example, has a goal to have no gas-fueled vehicles on the road by 2040. That is something that will significantly reduce the amount of pollutants we put in the air. If other major countries did that, the percentage of pollutants we release in the air would dramatically decrease. The United States is taking small steps to become green and to keep our citizens safe, but perhaps these small steps are not enough when our nation needs to be taking leaps.
The Natural Resources Defense Council states, “the Paris Agreement is a landmark environmental accord that was adopted by nearly every nation in 2015 to address climate change and its negative impacts” (Denchak). The main goal of this agreement is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we emit into the atmosphere. The agreement will require all of the participants to cut down carbon pollution at the same time; this is a big leap toward helping our atmosphere. The United States entered this agreement in 2016, but Donald Trump decided to withdraw the U.S. from this agreement before any real change began. According to the National Resources Defense Council, Trump denies that climate change is real and claims that it is a hoax. In his ‘More Fossil Fuels and Fewer Rules’ address, he said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement; and so he did. This demotes the seriousness of environmental health. Why not help reduce the amount of harmful gasses we release into the atmosphere? Why did Trump take us out of the Paris Agreement? “...I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States—which is what it does”, - he says. The Paris Agreement doesn’t punish America, and Trump could have renegotiated the U.S. commitment at any time. He believed that it only made us get rid of our coal-powered plants while China got to keep them. With a president that believes that global warming and climate change is not real in office, American citizens do not realize don’t notice how serious it is. We need to promote doing good habits that help our environment.
The planet is slowly dying beneath, under our feet, unnoticed. Whether global warming just makes the Earth so hot that we cannot handle it, or our weather patterns change so drastically that natural disasters become a normal thing. We all need to band together and, do our part to be green. The little things count at the beginning of making a small change, such as; reduce reducing the amount of water and energy used. People don’t realize, this but reducing the amount of resources we use, the less carbon the plants release into the atmosphere. After mastering the small steps, we do bigger things that will heavily change our planet for the better.
Works Cited
- Denchak, Melissa. “Paris Climate Agreement: Everything You Need to Know”. NRDC, 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know#sec-whatis
- Kenton, Will. “Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)”. Investopedia, Investopedia, 6 Sept. 2019, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-protection-agency.asp
- Meyer, Robinson. “The Indoor Man in the White House”. The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 Jan. 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trump-withdraws-paris-agreement/579733/
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