Lifestyle and Being Green

Lifestyle and Being GreenNowadays manyenvironmental issues are in the news. All of them have a devastating effect onthe Earth and people on the planet. If they are not being tackled it can turnout that people boost the dying of their planet.The first urgentissue is the pollution of air, water and soil. Air pollution has a strong linkwith the traffic problem I m going to speak about a bit later. Besides thatpolluting of the world s air is caused by poisonous wastes of industrialenterprises.This burning problem makes people do something about it, otherwiseit won t be possible to breathe in industrialized towns and cities.

This problem is beingsolved by filtering fume emissions and by moving industrial enterprises out ofcities and towns.Water or marinepollution is also partly caused by flowing of the poisonous water to differentrivers, ponds, lakes and seas. But we also have to face the problem of oil inthe world s waters.Oil tankers are not safe enough to guarantee the fullisolation of the oil inside.

Oil in the sea kills both flora and fauna andmakes the water totally dead. This acute problem needs to be solved in a shortperiod of time.Soil pollution iscaused by car fumes and misusing of it. Environmentalists say that it will taketen or more times more time to make it useful again than to pollute it and makeit unsuitable neither for cultivating crops nor for growing trees.Rare animals andplants extinction is also in the news these days. This issue is connected withcutting down forests, illegal hunting for fur animals and pollution.

The ideais that every species is connected with all others and if one or more of themdie out the link will be broken. This can lead to unpredictable consequences.Perhaps one of themost burning ecological crisises is the greenhouse effect that leads to anotherone - global warming.The greenhouse effect is the property of the atmosphereto pass the solar energy to the surface of the Earth and to detain the thermal energy.

Thegreenhouse effect causes acid rains, changes global weather patterns. Due tothe global warming the greenhouse effect can lead to the melting of the polarice caps. This will lead to the rising of the sea level, will cause floods,famine and people concentration.Ozone depletion isalso very dangerous. Ozone holes appear in the ozone layer of our planet.Ithas an extremely devastating effect on people - it can cause skin cancer,blindness and the suppression of immunity.Energy consumptionincludes overusing of non-renewable sources of energy. No matter how strange inmay seem but we are short of energy.

Fossil fuels are exhausted. According tosome environmentalists, it will take not more than a century for fossil fuelsto be totally exhausted.That s why we are to search for alternative sources ofenergy such as solar power, wind power, geothermal power and so on.Cutting rainforestsmeans cutting our planet s lungs. Two thirds of the whole oxygen in the worldare produced by rainforests.

There s more to it, some medicines are made fromrainforest plants. Many kinds of animals and plants are lost when therainforests disappear. Even weather is changed by the destruction ofrainforests. All these reasons should make the humanity stop destroyingrainforests and take on active recycling instead.And finally the mostacute problem that is regarded as a social one is a throw-away society.Atleast one tonne of rubbish is thrown away every year by an average family offour.

Only a little waste of glass is recycled, plastic is almost not recycledat all! Billions of drink cans are thrown away instead of beingrecycled. This problem is closely connected with people s lifestyle. Some ofthem change their way of life to become more friendly to the environment.Being green means being aware of urgent problems of the environment andbeing interested in all things to do with the environment.Not everyone cancampaign for environmental protection or animal rights but every human being isable to realize the need to protect the planet against destruction.

Using environment-friendlygoods is not so difficult but is saves the environment. Ozone-friendly spraysand aerosols, washing-up liquids and washing powders are available in any shopand anyone can contribute to saving the planet by only using them.Consuming water andenergy prevents the Earth from being exhausted soon. Running on unleaded petrolmeans less car fumes in the air. Moreover, unleaded petrol is even cheaper andyou ll save both the environment and your money by using it. Some people preferbicycles to cars definitely because they want to keep the air cleaner! Theproblem of rubbish can be partly solved if we will be more green .We can avoid following a throwaway lifestyle by sorting rubbish and bringing itto recycle plants and centers or special banks separately.

Most of householdwastes can be recycled.The idea thatlooking after animals is as important as looking after the environment iswidely spread nowadays.

There s no doubt that animals are part of theenvironment, but as I see it, changing eating habits and becoming a vegetarianis too much. I don t see any cons of eating meat. I suppose that killinganimals for food is OK because some of them are grown up for being killed formeat and fur. The argument for thinking is why don t we kill animals ifsometimes they kill human beings? Moreover, animals kill themselves.However,there are many people considering killing animals to be out of moral.

Theycampaign against testing drugs and cosmetics on animals, hunting animals forsport and many other things of this kind. In my opinion these things are quitepossible if they don t seriously harm the natural link between species.Which means oftransport should you prefer when you re going on a trip? If you care about theenvironment you ll definitely choose one that doesn t harm the environment.Modern towns and cities faced the traffic problem long ago. The specialistssuggest different ways of its solution.

Some people think that if we build moreroads the traffic will move more quickly and there ll be no traffic jams duringrush-hours. Others suppose that if there are more roads there ll be more carsto fill them and they will be even more congested with traffic. Environmentalists suggest that we should develop the system of public transportfor example, railways.If trains carry more people, the streets will be lesscongested with traffic and people.

Moreover, cars pollute the air more thantrains. Experienced motorists know how many people are killed and injured inroad accidents.However, cars aresymbols of freedom and wealth for most people. According to researches, thenumber of cars will double in ten years and we ll inevitably have to solve theproblem.If you ask me abouthow green am I it will be difficult for me to give a short,definite and truthful answer.The first reason why I can t do it easily is thatI still don t feel that all the environmental issues are global.

Furthermore,many people believe that a problem doesn t touch their interests until theyface it. No matter how strange it may seem, but I m in the same situation. Inaddition, it s rather difficult to do something about the environment when mostof other people around don t. However, I try to avoid using cars and try eitherto walk or to travel by public transport instead.Anyway, I m notready to join Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth yet. Even if I want to joinI m sure I won t be useful.

But I hope my attitude to the environment willchange when I become a little older.To draw aconclusion I can say that it s up to everyone to choose what to do to contributeto the saving of our planet. I wish everybody on the Earth were as willing tosave the planet as people from Greenpeace.Alexander V. Myskin, gr. 1o1.