3.1 Help the Environment

All of this arguing about global warming and the cost of fixing the global warming problem I feel is pointless. This is because I feel the majority of the people who are attempting to solve this issue of global warming are trying to do a quick fix. Yes, it might delay the effects of global warming, but I feel the majority of the efforts to fix global warming should be redirected towards saving the environment and reducing the amount of pollution we are producing that will effect our environment.

Last year, I went on a field trip to my Advance Placement Biology class to the Potomac River. The plan was we were going to get a boat and a tour guide that would lead us down the river and we would test the water to see if it was a good ecosystem and also we would just observe the creatures that lived in the river. My impression of the river was the color the river. It was dark brown in most of the river and in some spots black. I really thought this wasn’t right, but my guide said this was because of all the runoff being produced from the neighboring construction of new buildings.

When we started to test the water for PH test and also a turbidity test, I found out that the river was not healthy. The PH test told me that there was very little oxygen in the river, which resulted in a low population of fish and other creatures that lived the river. Also, the turbidity test was to test the clearness of the water. It was just so surprising how unclear the water was and it made me wonder how did this all happen? Our guide told us that the drainage water from the city, runoff produced from the construction, and some illegal dumping of trash produced this almost toxic river. When we went further down the river, I saw huge semi circle gates that were all lining the side river. My guide told me this is were the trash and also the drainage water from city flows into the river. Right at that point, I saw an island of trash just sitting in the river. The after affects of illegal dumping could be increased “crime activities” in places that allow illegal dumping, contaminates in the drinking water, increase tax payer dollars to fix the river and many other side affects of dumping(Facts about Illegal Dumping). With this being some of the serious side affects of illegal dumping, I wondered who would take the serious end of all the problems that were caused by the illegal dumping. There was Mcdondaldes wrappers, soda cans, and many more items of trash.

After this sight, we decided to go fishing to observe how all of these problems to the river affected the life of the creatues living in the river. After attaching a net to the end of the boat and sailing around for a couple of minutes, we had pulled the net up and we saw some fish. I was surprised we even caught a fish. The guide said told us “Don’t be surpised if you see some deformed fish”. I thought he was kidding because he seemd like a funny man, but whne I picked up some of the fish, I saw random bumps on the sides of the fish. Also, there were some fish that had closed eyes and missing fins. The guide went on and told us that the river we were sailing on was very toxic and these deformations were a result of thes fish get cancer. The one thing I took from this field trip was that this river was toxic and basically a place where you wouldn’t want to go skinny dipping.

But when looking back on the field trip, I found it ironic that the river so close to the Capital was in this type condition. The place were laws are being passed to protect the environment is right next to a river that is uninhabitable and basically toxic to any creatues living in it. I feel that more legalization and more attention needs to be shined on the environment because soon enough, our backyards are going to be toxic to a point where we can not even go near them. Since the environment isn’t an issue that is clearly in trouble to most people, people always put “saving” or “helping” the environment in the back seat to other issues such as unemployment rates and tax issues. But people don’t realize what the environment produces for us. Without the environment, there would be no human race.

The environment and human beings live coincide with each other. If we had no rain forest, we would have terrible air qualities that would force us to take extreme measures to produce a solution. Also, with no rain forest, we would have no materials to create buildings, houses, and shelters; which we need to survive. Another aspect that humans need from the environment is organism. To protect animals that humans consume would be helping the environment because if we were to allow animals that we eat to toxic food that we produced, we would be eating toxic because these animals are toxic. There are so many situations that clearly explain our need for the environment, but the main problem is that we are not protecting the environment essentially need everyday.

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in my critical thinking class and this class is all about sustainability. The professor always talks about how sustainability shouldn’t just be about the environment, but rather sustainability plays into almost every aspect of life. It is a system where one issue will affect all of the other issues as well. For instances, I went to California 5 years ago to a city called Torrance. It is right outside Los Angeles, but it is a more neighborhood style city verse the city feeling Los Angeles. A couple minutes away from the city is Redondo Beach. I remember I always swam at the beach and would always just stand and let the small waves hit me. Also, to my right was a huge pier that usually had a lot of people fishing the top as well as a couple of restaurants serving fresh sea food. Finally, I remember that beach always having a good majority of the people swimming in water and a lot of umbrellas set up with families sitting underneath them. I went back just last year and I found a totally different beach. It was empty. There were zero umbrellas set up, barely any kids swimming in the water and the pier was a lot less crowded from what I remember. Finally, I saw a sign near the water that read “Swim at your Own Risk”. I thought it meant there were no lifeguards on duty, so I stepped into the water. After coming out, I felt my foot was sticky. I found out there was oil on my foot.

I found out that this beach was toxic now because there was oil found in the water at this beach. There could be many reasons for the oil at the beach, but it just surpised me how the oil just floated to the beach. This situation reminded me of the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska. I remember the scenes of the after affect of the oil spill where people would be cleaning off the seals and rocks with tooth brushes. The affects of an oil spill an the wild life surrounding the land are: dieses to many of the animals and their young, making animals more vulnerable to predators, killing many of the animals, and many more serious problems (The Effects of Oil on Wildlife). If I actually wanted to swim, I could have been harmed from the oil in water. This story just plays into sustainability I learned in my critical thinking class. If we don’t keep the environment healthy, it can bite us in back end and harm humans. We can be harmed from our solutions of removing trash or toxic waste from dumping in the oceans.

To have a successful life, every aspect of any life must be sustainable and balanced. Humans discarding trash and dumping waste into the oceans keeps landfills sustainable and available. But when the oceans are all dirty and toxic, the environmental aspect is not sustainable because after years of depending on the oceans as landfill, the oceans will be so toxic and so dirty that we can not even use the oceans to fish for food, swim for fun, or other activates. To keep and create ways to keep the environment sustainable for many other generations will provide a world where humans will be safe and world where the benefit of the environment will not harm humans in the process.

To protect the environment and create legislation to ensure that harm to the environment does not occur is necessary for this planet and our human race to survive. There are many issues that today’s world deals with and I feel the issue of the destruction of the environment always takes a backseat to these issues. But at the time, I feel the protection of the environment could be the most important issue of all because it has a long lasting affect on the future generations of this world. If we are solving all problems that plague this life time and in the process don’t protect the environment, it is for sure to spell out trouble for future generations. By creating legislation and ways to protect the environment efficiently, we are guaranteeing a place for our kids and their kids to live in.


CITATION LIST

1) “Facts about Illegal Dumping”. City of Dayton Serving the Community. 2008. April 15, 2010 Web
2) “The Effects of Oil on Wildlife”. Australian Government. April 15, 2010 Web