Every single day, people have the choice of being conscious about their daily interactions with nature. However, most people choose to pollute instead because they don’t care about how the environment’s health condition is. There is the concern of how the future of the world will be affected because of the pollution. The issue is: The suffering is already happening now. Humans focus on the future so much that they don’t see what is already being destroyed currently, and the effects of the current time have an effect on the future. In the article “Our planet is not doomed. That means we can, and must, act” by Dagomar Degroot, the idea of the future being able to be saved by caring about the present has been conveyed. Dagomar Degroot explains the concept of people thinking the future is already destroyed due to climate change, therefore those people think putting in effort to try to save the future won’t do anything – this is the mentality of the people who are only focusing on how the world will be in the future. However, if humans continue to think this way, then there will be the result of less effort put in to eliminate global warming – which ruins the environment even more due to continuation of pollution. The time to change how the environment gets treated must be as soon as possible, meaning humans must take action to care for the conservation of nature in the present . There are so many ways to contribute to the health of the environment such as recycling, using reusable water bottles, using solar energy, etc. Every action matters – even the action of informing friends and neighbors about how to live sustainably such as sharing a car to drive (to reduce carbon emissions), or making sure to turn off the car’s engine if the car is parked so the air pollution can be avoided – air pollution can hurt the lungs and tissues in the body.
The negative side effects of global warming should be understood by humans:
1. There are natural disasters happening constantly – for example, hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, etc. The reason for these natural disasters is climate change because climate change results in the heat of the oceans to increase, therefore the ocean’s heat going up has the effect of leading to the natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.).
2. The temperature of the whole entire planet is increasing. This would have the effect of extreme heat in many countries which can result in heat strokes. The heat strokes results in the body not lowering its own temperature.
3. The more buildings that get built, the more trees get cut down. This elimination of trees to make more buildings actually increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. However, with less trees, the carbon dioxide levels in the world increase, therefore there is more air pollution. Then the air pollution results in many diseases which can be in the lungs, and the other effect of air pollution is the pollution from the air going into the body’s tissues which can cause infections in the tissues.
The health of the world affects the health of the people and animals on the planet. It’s important to inform people of how important nature is and how to protect nature. Helping nature survive should be a daily task. Although people worry about the future, there are already natural disasters ruining habitats of animals and causing injuries to many people. The lungs breathe in pollution and get ruined, and along with this, many other functions of the body suffer due to the contaminants in the air from carbon emissions. There should be more effort in creating positive interactions which can help the environment be protected – this should be done now, as soon as possible.
Citation:
Degroot, Dagomar. “Our Planet Is Not Doomed. That Means We Can, and Must, Act.” Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/07/our-planet-is-not-doomed-that-means-we-can-must-act.