Word Count: 642
Breaking the Norm
Hundreds of years ago there was little to no pollution on earth. There were no cars, factories,
or trash that was not decomposable. Air quality was at it’s all time best, water was not nearly as
polluted as it is today, and trash was not out of control. People who live one hundred years in the
future will be appalled by how we could have treated the planet we live on the way we did for so
long. How could we have let it get this bad? The earth is being polluted more and more
everyday. Fossil fuels, are still being used, trash holding sites are growing in size, and the water
and air quality is starting to become dangerously polluted.
At the rate we are going, the earth will look very different from the way it does now. Where
did it all start anyway? The industrial revolution is where pollution began to really increase. The
world was transitioning to a new way of doing things. Cities had a constant grey cloud above
them. Few noticed the damages occurring to the environment. Given it got a little better over the
years, today we still have smog over our cities. This is a direct result from using fossil fuels to
fuel our everyday needs. Cars burn gas that releases carbon monoxide into the atmosphere,
houses are still primarily heated by burning coal and oil, and these are just the start of pollutants
being used. We really have to ask ourselves, is there really a need to pollute our earth with fossil
fuels when we can easily switch over to renewable energy?
People now offer some justification for polluting our earth. In 2013, Bryan Walsh from TIme
magazine commented on the issue. The main reason why we do not want to stop using fossil
fuels is because it would be costly in the short term. But why not sacrifice a little now to make
sure future generations do not have to deal with the problems we created for them? In my
opinion, we should have realised the magnitude of the situation awhile ago but we kept putting it
off and just told ourselves that this is not a real issue. It is oh so real and now people are maybe
starting to see that there is a problem and we need to make a hasty change or else future
generations will have to face the consequences.
A hundred years from now, our generation will be criticized for not switching to renewable
resources sooner. Why did our generation not do anything to help prevent further damage to our
planet? This question I think will be asked many times. The answers to this question though are
quite dumb. Too much money, too much time; not that important are all answers we here today.
These answers seem silly though when the quality of life for future generations is at hand. By not
changing our way of doing everyday things, is basically saying we do not care about future
generations. The planet will not survive much longer by the way our generation treats it.
The answer is simple. Slowly start to change to renewable energy resources. Taking a step in
the right direction is all it takes. Every little step adds up and this will create a big impact on our
planet. At the rate we are going, the earth will not be a place humans would want to live. Future
generations will have a planet that is worth living on and they will blame past generations.
Hopefully more and more people in our generation will realize what we are doing to our planet
and have the urge to do something about it. If no one cares then, planet earth has no good future.