Go Green or Go Scream!
The world in the grass.
Oh, what a wonderful day at the beach with the smog standing in the way of the poor, old sun. Then you step on disgusting, grimy cans of rotten meat. You stroll on, trying to enjoy the day, to the water and spot dead fish floating around the grimy oil spotting the water. So much for a swim...
Clearly, if we don’t start thinking about our carelessness, it will lead to this bleak future. Then there will no longer be such a thing as a relaxing day at the beach and that’s why we have to go green to stop global warming and start restoring our planet.
One thing that is affecting our non-green world is global warming, and it is a substantial threat to our lives now. Cars and factories keep polluting the ozone layer and recently scientists discovered two holes, which is very dangerous because the ozone layer protects us from burning into a substance called ashes! Carbon dioxide is one of the major culprits ripping apart our ozone layer. How wonderful would that be if we all suddenly combusted simultaneously!
Global warming affects everything, even icebergs! Icebergs are melting and separating which will make the water levels rise a few feet. If the waters rise, your hometown could be flooded or worse... It could be underwater.
To add to that, carbon dioxide is a very harmful fume that comes from fossil fuels, vehicles, smoke stacks, and factories. Of course, there are many more things that make carbon dioxide, but there way too many to name. We have to really step up our game and at least see what it is doing to our environment. For example, carbon dioxide is eating away the ozone layer, smoking up our atmosphere and making breathing difficult. If we don’t have the ozone layer we could be “burnin’ up” as the Jonas Brothers say and die of asthma attacks because of the horrible fumes of the carbon dioxide. If we don’t start taking action now we can have a world full of carbon dioxide.
Did you know that what you eat can actually hurt the environment everyday, too! What many of you eat is meat, and did you know that the meat industry produces 37% of all methane, which is between 23 to 62 times more harmful than carbon dioxide; it also conducts 65% of all nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more harmful than carbon dioxide! Who knew that the steak you are eating is a double villain-clogging up your arteries and ripping apart the ozone layer!
Carbon dioxide is also coming from another suspect, vehicles! Cars: you can’t live without them and just approximately 100 years ago people used to walk around and go on bicycles around town, but now you have to drive to the person who lives just one house away! So now you know that carbon dioxide is the evil villain that rips apart the ozone layer everyday in a silent attack.
Reduce, reuse, recycle! Ever heard of that before? Well, if you haven’t then here’s the scoop: NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE RECYCLING! According to a survey, 81% of middle schoolers said that they want to start recycling now, but the other 19% of them responded they had to think about it later. What do you think these numbers are telling you? Clearly, most people do want to recycle, but what these numbers don’t tell you is that most of those same people are just apathetic! Apathetic people as in: lethargic, think it's useless, or they really don’t care at all and that’s why if we really don’t start going green by recycling (cans, plastic, paper, glass, etc.) all we could ever see in our recycling bins is nothing.
What we really have to start doing now is caring. Not just caring about whether you’ve walked the dog or taken out the trash, but start caring about the world.
The world really needs your help and if you just follow these simple steps, you could be walking away with green riches. To begin, you should start walking to places close to your house within a mile because if all you ever do is drive around town you will be creating more carbon dioxide. You should also try going vegetarian for a week for every other week. Or if you want to start out a little slow, you should go with two days in a weak without meat. To conclude, you should recycle. You should also reuse plastic bags or even better, cloth bags for grocery shopping.
Cloth bags are very big and easy to carry around, but those hideous yellow plastic bags can rip and leave you gaping at the big mess you have just made. In the end if you reduce your garbage, reuse bags, and recycle plastic, glass, and paper you could end up with a totally different world comparing to what you started out with.
“You are the change you wish to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi. So, make it happen.
Making lifestyle changes and helping the environment may seem difficult at first, but we do know that these changes cannot happen immediately. The transition is more like a process than an overnight change. So, if we don’t start thinking about the impedingly, horrible future we are heading for right now, the possibility will soon be a reality. However, would you rather live in a world where you can walk through the sand slipping through your toes with out having to walk on rotten food? Would you rather swim through the blindingly bright ocean without having to dodge dead fish floating around?
And before you leave the beach to your beach house (made of recycled material), wouldn’t you rather glance at the setting sun with the colors blending in with each other? Or would you want to live in a place full of garbage, dirty streets, and a place where you can’t even see the person in front of you and have to deal with the stinky smell of rubbish and dead animals (who died of the stench). So, think about it. Where would you want to be? Just do it! Start going green!
