Pollution

Pollution began to really impact the environment during the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution started to crank out some solid goods that helped our country's economy, but with this many hazardous byproducts were also made, and then disposed of in ways that polluted the land, water, and air of the earth. Waters became so polluted, that you could no longer tell if water was flowing, or if it was just another public restroom. One river, Cuyahoga, caught on fire because the chemicals polluting it ignited. It was disgusting-and then things got worse. I think that this is a terrible thing. The fact that people thought they could dump their waste and byproducts into a river, and not have any negative consequences, is just bad. People complain about global warming, and unclean waters, but really this is all product of their own wants and needs. Consumers buy things to make life easier and products that do more harm than good. A large part of our pollution problem is due to consumerism. As our numbers increase in spending and in population, he amount of hazardous waste has increased from 1 million ton in the 1940s, to 250 million tons annually in 1980s. Wow that's a huge jump in only 4 decades. With this upward trend, we should realize that it needs to stop. We need to do something so that we start producing significantly less hazardous waste.

Pollution not only affects our rivers, but it also affects the air. The quality of the air we breathe is getting lower and lower. The smog in the air is sometimes considered so dangerous in San Fransisco, that it is warned not to exercise outside for fear of getting toxins too deep within lungs. This is clearly not good. Not only are we becoming a fat country, the pollution we put out is another excuse not to exercise. We are at the point where pollution is not only affecting our environment and other animals, but it is now affecting us and poisoning us. There must be a stop to this pollution.

"pollution." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson is an author who is credited for helping to launch the environmental movement. She was an ecologist and ecology writer, and wrote several books that helped impact the way people looked at their surroundings. In 1962 she wrote a book called Silent Springs which sparked a shift in people's opinions toward the use of pesticides and DDT. I think that books like this are important because the provoke a necessary wake up call and awareness to people. It causes people to realize that they should question more things because everything affects them. Prior to her publishing, people were not aware that pesticides like the DDT caused harmful affects on wildlife other than the bugs they were designed to kill. Once people found this out they became outraged at the government and that it had regulated this. This shows that people need to be proactive and once again, question what is going on in their world. As she put it, "For the first time in history.. every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death." This also brings about the issue of how future generations are to be affected directly by the actions of the current one , and this also must be addressed. What Rachel Carson brought to the public's attention, is still an issue today. The fact that we as a society still struggle with making choices that have less of a negative impact on the environment. Our current generation seems to be making the most effort in terms of research as our resources are starting to dwindle and more animals are getting harmed and added onto the endangered species list. Obviously we are getting a lot better, but we still a lot more to get done in order to have an ideal balance between progress and a healthy environment. Overall we have Rachel Carson to thank and her willingness to take heat and publish the ideas that helped change the way Americans thought. She definitly is one of the key people to consider when talking about the environmental movement that helped make the world a little better.

"Rachel Carson." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

Environmental Actions

During the 20th century people became more aware of their own environmental impact. They also became more concerned about how the government should be involved in protecting it. There were many movements that came about including the National Park, environmental, and conservation movement. All of which started to show the necessary concern toward the environment. The article "Environment" talks about how initially, Americans thought that natural resources within America were inexhaustible and when told that they were disappearing with the frontier of America, they were shocked. This demonstrates how ignorant Americans were and that the government should inform their people better. At least they started to care more about the environment-which was good, until they became carless again. But on the contrary, as history progressed, more environmental programs were created such as the U.S. Forest Service Act, Soil Conservation Act, Endangered Species Act,Clean Water Act, and Earth Day. The difference these programs made was tremendous because it helped helped the environment as well as remind Americans of the issues they lived with. The problem is that it took disasters to occur for these programs to be created. It took an oil spill, a nuclear plant explosion, many species to be threatened of extinction, and the dust bowl for any of these acts to be thought of -which is just careless. Once the enviornmental issue was brought about, it should have been thought of with every action we made. When urbanization occured we should have been less carless with the land instead of causing permnanent damage to it. Generally speaking, as much progress that Americans have made to eliminate their environmental impact, there is still the history of land abuse that cannot be taken back. There needs to be more steps taken in the direction of restoration, so we do not have to make any more prevention acts for a problem we have made.

"environment." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. .

environment

The environment is important because the rate of its deteriation is rather fast. Most of the problems that the environment has been having is because of us. Our hurry to progress and become the biggest, and best country in the world has caught up to us, and the consequences of our past and history are now evident in the current climate crisis. In 8th grade I wrote a paper that talked about the infinite growth rate of the human race and whether or not our earth had the carrying capacity to support that growth. Because our technology advances in our rush to progress, we are able to alter our living environment as well as our own longevity. This is part of the reason why our population can become so large. In my research paper I found that it concluded that we must do something different -if we wanted to keep living on this earth- because what we are doing now is destroying it. That's why I wanted to pursue the topic of the enviornment, I wanted to see how the past leads to the current problem, and the different ways we can help and change our enviornment for the better.

State of the Union Address

State of the Union
Barack Obama made a lot of promises at his State of the Union. His initial start I thought was interesting because he went through America’s history and how it has progressed and digressed economically through the decades. The topic of our economy’s state I thought was accurate, and the plans he has to improve it I think are realistic. He stated that 1 in 10 Americans still cannot find work, but he is still hopeful for America’s future in terms of jobs. What the government has done to help struggling families thus far is make health insurance 65% cheaper, and the people of America have not seen a raise in income taxes. All of which, I believe are very helpful. They government has also created jobs for 2 million Americans, who otherwise would not be working right now. He proposed a New Job’s Bill yesterday night, in order to address the issue of jobs in 2010. This should help the foundation for long term growth. Another way to help with jobs and the economy is by creating clean energy jobs. I personally agree with this because our earth is our home, so obviously we should be taking care of it. These jobs will help promote environmental awareness as well help the cause.
Another promise that Barack Obama hopefully will fulfill is one that involves college. I would really like to go to college, but there is the issue of how expensive the enrollment is. In the north shore, the issue of money problems is not always prevalent, but for the rest of the country this promise will affect the process of college enrollment indefinitely. To make college more affordable the government might give families $10,000 tax credit, as well as call off all college debt if it takes more than 20 years to pay, and it will cancel the debt in 10 years if you go into public services. As he said, “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” This statement has a lot of truths to it and I hope that it can happen before I go to college. I definitely like the way that Barack Obama has run the country thus far.

cheese logs

I don't really like cheese that much, but I decided to write about it. Actually, I do enjoy swiss.