Mahatma Ghandi once said "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed". Everyday we take what we have for granted. For instance, the water that comes out of our faucets every day is vital to our lives but we tend to ignore its importance and continue to routinely waste and contaminate it. Or, how about the air we breathe? The air we breathe surrounds us and is vital to almost every living thing on Earth, but we ignore its importance and we contaminate the air with fuel emissions, the burning of fossil fuels, and the use of household and farming chemicals. In fact, seventy percent of our electricity is produced by burning coal and other fossil fuels thereby polluting the air we breathe. Our food supply is also something most of us tend to take for granted. Many of us regularly overeat while millions starve. We waste our food; we eat too much and we think very little about how it gets on our plates every day or where it comes from. All in all, we tend not to think about what we take for granted and the effects that pollution is doing to our environment, the water we drink, the air we breath, and the food we eat. Each of these items, vital to our lives, we waste, pollute or abuse without much thought or regard for the consequences. But what can we do about these consequences? Well, for starters take a look outside.
Look outside, see the trees
Watch the flowers in the breeze
Things won't be like this in a year or two
If polluting is all we do
Seize the night
Seize the day
Things won't always be this way
Thousands of people are dying
In the night you hear children crying
Let's stop the war
Our people are sore
The world can't help itself
Who cares about your wealth
Help me to help you
Show the world what you can do
--Anonymous
Appreciate the nature around you and the resources that you have so that you can make change in the world. The poem above simply, yet effectively outlines the environmental problems we face in the world and the poem motivates its readers to 'wake up and smell the roses', or in other words, realise what we are doing to the environment around us.
Everyday we abuse the resources that we have for money, lust, and greed. We need to stop pollution, and we need to become aware of these issues before it is too late or face the consequences. In fact, the Chinese capital of Beijing has suffered from serious air pollution for several years. Primary sources of pollutants include exhaust emissions from Beijing's, more than five million, motor vehicles, coal burning in neighbouring regions, and dust storms from the north and local construction dust. Did you know that in Beijing citizens regularly wear masks so that they do not inhale the pollutants in the air? In the image below you will see an example of this:
Watch the flowers in the breeze
Things won't be like this in a year or two
If polluting is all we do
Seize the night
Seize the day
Things won't always be this way
Thousands of people are dying
In the night you hear children crying
Let's stop the war
Our people are sore
The world can't help itself
Who cares about your wealth
Help me to help you
Show the world what you can do
--Anonymous
Appreciate the nature around you and the resources that you have so that you can make change in the world. The poem above simply, yet effectively outlines the environmental problems we face in the world and the poem motivates its readers to 'wake up and smell the roses', or in other words, realise what we are doing to the environment around us.
Everyday we abuse the resources that we have for money, lust, and greed. We need to stop pollution, and we need to become aware of these issues before it is too late or face the consequences. In fact, the Chinese capital of Beijing has suffered from serious air pollution for several years. Primary sources of pollutants include exhaust emissions from Beijing's, more than five million, motor vehicles, coal burning in neighbouring regions, and dust storms from the north and local construction dust. Did you know that in Beijing citizens regularly wear masks so that they do not inhale the pollutants in the air? In the image below you will see an example of this:
We can continue to predict what is going to happen if we do not realise the environmental issues we are causing daily, or we can take action to stop it now. Make change in your community, the environment, and the world!