2015 Expressions on a Sustainable UMD: The Power to Change May 2015 | Page 24

Courtney Jones College Park Academy 8th Grade Climate change is an important issue to every living thing on the face of the earth, but I think it is drastically more important to those of my generation, because this is the planet that we’re going to have to live on for a while longer. My peers and I are young. We have to take care of this planet so we still have a home in the next hundred years, and to keep it alive for the generations that follow. We have this burden, this sick baby that we have to nurse back to health, keep it alive for a while longer for our sake, even though it’s bound to die. Yes, there is lengthy talk and prospects of finding a new home. The Mars rovers are certainly a good idea, but we just haven’t arrived at a solution yet. I know that for me personally, I don’t want to live on a planet where the air is too polluted for me to breathe, where there’s nearly no clean water left and the smidgen remaining is too dirty for me to drink, and where the groundwater is infested with fracking fluid. I look around, and I see it. I see the drought in California, and I see the superstorms and untimely snow. The funny thing is, we could stop if we wanted to. We could say, “Hey, how about no more fossil fuels?” We could convert to solar and wind power, even the water could provide power for us. That doesn’t mean we will. Coal and oil have been used for centuries. It’s so much a part of us now, and so many people are making so much money off of the fossil fuels that are killing this planet. We use them all the time. As I look around now, I see at least one hundred items powered by electricity, which is generated by polluting fossil fuels. Not a single one of these users would be willing to give them up, and honestly, neither would I. Right now, I’m making a promise not to pollute when I can avoid it. Admittedly, there’s no drastic change I can make to turn the fate of Earth on its head. However, I can turn off my light when I’m not using it. I can take out plugs when the devices aren’t in use. I can cut back on my electricity time. I won’t waste water, or food that requires more energy to grow. I have to fight climate change because it’s the only hope for me to have an earth I can still live on. !20!