3.2 Awareness to Help the Enviroment

Just a Note, I have my sources from my last paper and I am just wondering where to put these sources that doesn’t disrupt the flow of the paper. So, there are no sources that are added in this paper, but I have done research on this topic.




5 years ago, I remember going to Redondo Beach in California where I was able to swim and wade through the waves as they would go through me on a typical sunny California day. I can remember the warm sand through my toes and the miles of clean sand. This is one of the golden memories of my childhood. This past summer, my mother, sister and I decided to visit our family over at California. In the process, most of us wanted to go to the Redondo Beach. To my shock and disappointment, the first thing I saw when walking to the water was the sign “Swim at your own Risk”.

The first thing I thought was “Oh, no lifeguards. This will be okay because I don’t plan to swim; I just plan to walk in the water and stay there for a little.” As I stood there for around 5 minutes, I took in the scenery of the beach. I saw around 25 people, mostly kids, in the water in a half of mile stretch of beach. I also saw that there were a low number of umbrellas on the beach. My first thought was that it was a busy day and many people were just not going to the beach, but I would find out that I was very wrong. I decided to come up to go to the pier and the first thought that cross my mind was sand was sticking to the bottom of my foot. I thought it was normal, but after I put my sandal on, it stuck to my foot. After I took off my sandal and looked at the bottom of my foot, I found out that I had oil that basically covered half of the bottom of my foot. I was really confused to why there was oil on the bottom of my foot until my aunt connected the dots for me. That “Swim at your own Risk” sign was telling us that this beach was no longer safe to swim at.

I knew there were many places all of the world that were being environmentally destroyed such as the coral reefs and the wetlands because of pollution and irresponsibleness of major companies and human beings, but I wouldn’t have expected this big beach to have the status of “Swim at your own Risk” because of pollution. This situation really opened my eyes to the problems we as human beings are causing to our environment. The more I look around through the internet and through my own eyes from my daily routine, the more I see our environment is being mistreated and destroyed because of the pollution we are producing and the mistreatment we are doing to our environment. I feel we need to find a solution to protect our environment because if we keep on this tract of harming the environment through our pollution, there will be no safe environment left for our future generations to live in.

I watch the news everyday and read news from the internet about the conversation of the environment. Most issues today all have something to do with global warming. This is the biggest environmental issue that plagues our generations and I feel all the political efforts to save the environment are based towards prevent global warming. But I feel the approach of saving the environment by fixing global warming will act as a quick fix for our environmental problems. My critical thinking professor, who is a big advocate on protecting and conserving the environment, taught me that people will solve problems when they see that problem must be fixed and has priority over all over problems,. From the news of today, today’s problems are all around tax rates, war, oil, and the economy. These are the main issues that the government feels they need to fix first in order to keep the society of the United States happy. But lingering in the shadow is a problem that has been put in the back seat for many years because new problems keep occurring.

This problem is the destruction of the environment. Since the environment has very little direct connections to the typical human, most people feel the destruction of the environment is not an issue with top priority. Recently, issue has been brought to global warming and as a result has shined a light on other areas of the destruction of the environment. But shining a light on the problem does little to help fix it. I feel the government needs to take steps in protecting the government by reducing pollution caused by humans and by companies. Also, I feel we as the society need to take steps in developing habits that are beneficial to the environment. These habits can range from trying to save electricity and not buying everything you want to recycle. All of these changes will result in a healthier environment for future generations.

I remember last year I had a field trip with my biology class to the Potomac River, just outside Washington D.C. The purpose of this field trip was to learn about the environment and also to get a hand on experience with working with different equipments and tests. When I got to the river and stepped on the boat that would be taking us, the first thing I noticed was the color of the water. The water had the color of a big mud pit you would see outside your house after a big rain storm. When I looked closer, I could see some areas of the river that was completely black. The boat captain said this was because of two reasons. The first reason he gave me was since there was a lot of construction all around the river, the dirt and soil around the river would be transferred into the river, causing the color of the river to shift to a darker brown color. The second reason he gave me was the trash and pollutions from factories and from the sewage systems coming from D.C.

After traveling a little further down the river, we decided to perform some test on the river. We did a pH test and a turbidity test. The pH test would determine if the water was acidic or basic; and that would determine how much oxygen was in the river. The turbidity test would basically test of the clarity and the cleanliness of the river. After going through 30 minutes of picking up test tubes and dropping white disk into the river, we finished both test and found disturbing results. The pH test told us that the water had a pH of around 4. The pH scales from 1 to 14, where the lower the number is the more acidic the water is and the higher the number being the more basic the number is. For most organisms, such as human and fish, the recommended pH is 7. This meant that there was a low level of oxygen in the river for the fish and other organisms to breathe. When looking at the results of the turbidity test, we found out that we could look more than 2 feet down into the water and see mud. This told me that there was no chance I could see the bottom of the river and that the water was really cloudy and disgusting. These results pointed to the fact that this ecosystem for fish and underwater organisms was terrible. When I asked what the cause of these disturbing results was, the answer was the same as before; pollution and construction of new buildings around the river.

When driving back to the dock to park the boat, I got a first hand view of the causes that were harming the river. Along the sides of the river were big semi circles made out of metal that blended with the bank of the river. The captain said those big semi circles were the old drainage system for the city. He said “When the city has rain storms and the new drainage systems are just not enough to handle the amount of rain, the rain goes to the old drainage system and dumps into the river.” This didn’t seem like a big problem until me mentioned that all the trash in the city that would wash up into the drains would basically be dumped into the river. This could be seemed a little further down the river were we could see islands of trash just sitting in the shallow areas of the river. I could see McDonald wrappers, cigarette buds, soda cans, and other things that belonged in the landfills. Also, when sailing back to the dock, I could see pipes that would go along the river and would dump into the river. Even though there were was nothing coming out of the pipes, I knew what was coming out of those pipes was not good for the river and the ecosystem.

It seems ironic that in the backyard of the capital is a river that is totally disgusting to look at and can be dangerous to swim in. But the Potomac River is just one example where pollution has basically destroyed the environment and ecosystem.

Overall, harm to the environment can be caused by the pollution that humans and companies produce and when people are mistreating the environment. To be able to protect the environment is to ensure that our future generations are able to live a life where they do not need to worry about the environment having negative affects on them or their own children. And the only way to produce prevention on negative effects to the environment is to make changes on how we do things now. Maybe in the future, I could return to Redondo Beach and swim in it without the chance of stepping in oil.


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
3) Morris, Brandon. “Oil, Money, and the Environment: Punitive Damage under Due Process, Preemption, and Maritime Law in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Ligation”. Tulane Maritime Law Journal. Issue 1(2008): 165-202. Print