Why politics need to go green
Getting involved encourages our politicians to take notice
Looking at Hollywood there is a push to go green. What exactly does it mean to go green and why should we care? Lately there has been a global climate change, no it is not “global warming” it is a general change in climate. If you haven’t noticed Texas didn’t get as hot this summer and we have been getting much more rain than normal. The reason is the world is not warming it is actually shifting changes in climate. The point is we only have one planet and we need to take care of it or the world as we know it will literally completely change.
This year is an election year; the fact that the climate has been changing you would think it would be an important subject on the political platforms of both parties. However, with issues like the economy crashing, the war in Iraq and the ever increasing prices of gas the environment has definitely been put on the back burner. What people don’t realize is that all of these issues intertwine together.
Until I took an environment class I had no idea how my choices affected the environment. Now there are companies like Frank Water in the UK that have made several efforts to educate their customers, such as Frank states that one recycled plastic bottle can power a 60W light bulb for six hours on it website. Many companies and governments in other countries have made the effort to educate people on environmental issues but the United States has made no attempts. When people show the government that they care about the future of the Earth the government takes notice and begins to implement policies to protect it.
In the late 1800’s we started the environmental cause with Theodore Roosevelt beginning conservation and setting aside national parks for no development to occur on. How have we slipped so far back that now people want to take away land from the national parks in order to drill for more oil or destroy precious underwater environments just for a short non-sustaining fix?
Both McCain and Obama were originally opposed to the idea of off shore drilling. Now they are both considering it in order to please their supporters. Even if we drill off shores it will take 50 years to make a real difference. We can’t just keep drilling hoping the world will have enough oil because it won’t if we continue to use as much as we do now. That is why we need to find alternative renewable energy sources.
Looking up the platforms of Obama and McCain I was hoping to find under the energy section ideas to implement researching renewable energy resources. Instead under their “Energy” section all I found were exploration and production of natural gases and domestic oil. Both candidates call for a reduction in carbon emissions but they only have short little paragraph on looking for alternative sources of energy. If people would begin to show that they care about the environments the issue would be taken off the back burner and put into the main light because the candidates have nothing else to do but take notice.
Taking care of the environment would actually help our nation’s problems. If we began putting more of an effort into finding renewable resources more job opportunities would arise because of the need to change current problems into the environmentally friendly solutions. It would also stimulate the economy by giving tax deductions to people who chose to be more “green” and buy green products. The gas problem would subside in the next 20 years with a change from gas and oil to alternative sources of energy. The price of the war in Iraq would decrease because the United States would no longer as a country needs to depend on foreign sources of oil. There are many changes that could be made to push America back to the frontline of being an environmentally responsible country. With this year as an election year we need to push our candidates to really think about the issue and how they can implement change to take the step to being a better country as a whole, but it all starts with you as an individual taking a stand and letting it be known that you care. Written by: Teresa Powers
Ways to Go Green:
(1) Buy and use the reusable bags at stores. (2) Choose to eat at home rather than buying fast food and throwing away everything. (3) Buy green products (usually have little green leaf on them). (4) Support companies recycling their old plastic bottles to make shirts and clothes. (5) Of course Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. (6) And always: plant a tree.