Undergraduate / 'A Chance to Change' essay- This is worth a trip to Africa! [2]

Hello, I'm in 8th grade, and I have enrolled myself in a contest relating to sustainability at which if I won, I would go to Africa to debate on the subject in general. PLEASE HELP ME!

Prompt: Write an essay specifically pointing out who is responsible for changing what our world is like at the moment, what do they have to do to change it (like invest and etc.) and what sustainable ideas should be implemented.

25% of grade counts towards creativity by the way! (MAX OF 600 WORDS***)

A Chance to Change

"(..) ustainable development is a development that meets our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."(Sustainable Environment.org). A sustainable world is definitely not what we maintain at the moment, which is very unfortunate, as sustainability is key to change our future. As a matter of fact, sustainability is and has been a concept we have been reluctantly attempting to grasp due to risk-posing problems. Obviously with some effort, these problems can be solved with decent amounts of awareness and cooperation from powerful sources, such as wealthy countries' governments. It is specifically the American and Chinese governments who can provide a chance to change what past generations have recklessly done. In addition, it is by using clean energy, reforesting, and recycling, that a positive destiny can be assured to us.

Another aspect concerning the world lately, has been the massive deforestation produced by industries. "The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison."(Karl Marx). Karl Marx died in 1883, when the situation regarding deforestation was already concerning civilization. Nowadays, the ratio of trees cut down to trees planted is just ridiculous. A solution would be enforcing reforestation. It would not only provide benefits relating to Earth's well being, but it would also truly provide a bigger amount of jobs as more work requires more effort, proving to provide economical benefits towards society. Therefore, the process of reforestation must be regarded as one of high importance, and must be exerted.

Myth of fact, global warming is still an aspect influencing fear. Causes to global warming include the colossal carbon emissions worldwide (33,376,327 tonnes worldwide in 2011). Whether produced by cars, factories, or even human respiration, carbon dioxide is and will always be a harmful gas, slowly deteriorating our planet, and augmenting its temperature until we boil. Clean energy is an obvious solution to it, providing a less harmful, if not flawless way of feeding our energy-based needs, proving to be a definite winner when comparing clean and "dirty" energy, but to successfully provide the world with clean-based energy, the previous mentioned governments would have to invest in such production.

Since the start of the century, we have been facing a decrease in commonly-used materials such as paper, plastic, and aluminum, due to the huge growth in production of products that contain those materials. Something that should be implemented more in society is the process of recycling, which would reuse the materials suffering a decrease, meaning that instead of gathering the raw materials, industries could produce with recycled materials, decreasing the need to diminish important resources to us. It is reasonable to counter this argument by saying that the production of such products would be far more expensive, as industries would have to buy the recycled material, but in fact, what is produced expensively can be sold expensively; simply increasing the price of the products would cancel out this problem, so, recycling would be a favorable option.

It is a choice that we have to make. We can still have a future, but only if we act upon our ideas, or else, a doomed world will emerge. There is time to change our destiny, but we need help. The American and Chinese governments are the ones who can provide a chance to change what our world has become. Furthermore, it is by using clean energy, reforesting, and recycling, that we can assure that the Earth will last the most it can.

Bibliography -

Epa.gov. "Common Recyclable Materials." EPA. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. epa.gov/smm/wastewise/pubs/commonmats.pdf

"Future Generations." Sustainable Development | Future Generations. Sustainable-Environment.org, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. sustainable-environment.org.uk/Principles/Future_Generations.php.

Writing Feedback / Consequences to Uselessly Building in Wildlife/Natural Areas [2]

Hello, this is an essay I have written in the past and plan on using it again as a 9th grade essay, is it good enough?

PROMPT - Write an essay explaining if the use of wildlfe areas is a good or bad idea for building.

Consequences to Uselessly Building in Wildlife/Natural Areas

"In the U.S., less than 25% of native vegetation remains..." (World Animal Foundation). Today's world is slowly filling itself with jungles; stone jungles. Over-populated cities, mountain high skyscrapers, absurdly big farms, colossal oil pumps, and many other advances of the "modern" human world are what fill our world in the 21st century. As everything, what we call modernizing comes at a cost; in my opinion, a huge one: we are demolishing our planet's beauty, one, which has for long prevailed until we "arrived". Since then, we have burnt down forests, extinct various animals, and harmed all the nature surrounding us. This has to be stopped. The development of manmade structures is definitely not worth the loss of naturally stunning nature and neither animal habitats.

Many engineering companies believe that the development of near-forest homes is surely something luxurious, and a benefit to whom can afford such as expense. They assume that by doing so, a higher population will live happier, and many will be given the opportunity to live near the nature, having fresh air and beauty surrounding them. However, to do so, thousands of trees are burnt down, negating their perspective of a wildlife area near the homes. In addition, not only are they destroying natural resources and life, but they're contributing to a major problem in Earth: Global Warming. The smoke produced by the massive burnings is a major contribution to the destruction of our solar and heat protection above us, known as the ozone layer, pulling closer the inevitable. Moreover, we are killing our carbon dioxide soakers: the trees, proving themselves to be a great delay to global warming, and still, we continue to destroy them. "Forests are the planet's biggest terrestrial carbon sinks, soaking up and storing a quarter of the world's annual emissions. Forests are also vulnerable to changes in climate, leading scientists to explore whether they can continue their sequestering magic in a warming world. A new large scale study provides a worrisome answer, suggesting that while forests are very resilient, they may not be able to shoulder the load in the long run." (Valerie Ross). On the whole, even though destroying natural areas for housing space might not seem like a bad idea for giving people more opportunities, we are actually, shortening Earth's life span, not giving a chance for the future generations and making people's lives less luxurious consequently.

Animal extinction is a very important issue. Society has been recklessly endangering thousands of species from the last ten years onwards as a result of economical ambition, or even power, as an example, the search for petroleum. Furthermore, companies believe that the search for underwater petroleum is more important than the ecosystem deep in the oceans, which therefore gets continuously devastated by the recurring oil spills. "1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines in a typical year. A major oil spill could easily double that amount." (U.S. Department of Energy). Therefore, an oil spill could easily endanger various species and pose a hazard to corals and other living organisms. According to one of Animal Planet's official web pages, twelve animal species have been threatened by the last severe oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Those include: the nesting and migrating shore birds, migrating Songbirds, Brown Pelicans, Sea Turtles, Whales and Dolphins, Manatees, Fish, Shellfish, Crabs, Gulf Sturgeons, and North Atlantic Blue Fin Tunas. This proves that definitely, an oil spill can deal some serious damage. Also, companies put priority into oil searching as it proves to be a big necessity to humanity and most of all, has a big impact on the economy. Conversely, not only can the life underwater be affected and possibly extinct, but also, the massive massacre to fish causes a huge impact on the economy. The demand for fish in the market grows highly as there is less of the product. Many fishing companies could bankrupt in such a scenario as they could possibly not manage to obtain the fish, and many other economical problems appear. This is a great example to expose the ignorance of people into thinking that by abusing nature to such an extent, they can gain money, but not thinking that the consequences to these actions may in fact cause an even greater economical problem. A second problem to having our animals endangered by our naĂŻve actions is a food chain interruption. As the quantity of an animal decreases, it's predator's quantity decreases to even lower numbers, from there on, the predator of each predator starts to fade away, causing a great problem in nature, leading to a possible multi-extinction process, which one day may end with us, the highest predators in the food chain.

Lastly, one scenario which has been happening over the years to a negative extent in every possible way is the large garbage disposition we deal. Building, consuming, and creating, all lead to excessive garbage. For example, if a company plans of building something on a wildlife/natural area, that area by all means is already condemned to overly excessive littering; cement, dust, plastic, metal, and all other types of materials which cause a negative impact towards nature. People show neglect towards their surroundings and future, not caring whether what is dropped by their hands, might end up in a bird's stomach, or radioactively decomposing into something dangerous to us. This is why I go against many people's ignorance towards littering and their little awareness. Everything such as this has reactions; from littering, we may end up with hundreds of extinct species animals, or having millions of deformed babies being born as a cause of radioactive substances, or even something which may pose a threat to those beach lovers who constantly litter our beautiful coasts: "black" with garbage seas, floating animal corpses, and much more. Consequently, "If everyone in the world threw garbage and litter indiscriminately wherever they want, the environment would soon be in ruins." (Articles Base), which is why we all must think twice before having companies wreck natural areas and dispose of all useless construction material in wildlife areas.

We want more than we can have, and that selfish thought is what slowly decays Earth. We over use our modernity and apply it to nature: something which is already modern in its own way and which shouldn't be impacted by us. Nature is strictly intended to be a parallel structure, made to be untouched. However, we break this "sacred" rule, and take our own risk into building "where it isn't allowed", which causes many issues we see around in the news every day. Consequences such as animal extinction, littering, and deforestation are reasons to why not to build in naturally beautiful areas, and it should strictly stay as intended: untouched. We shan't build in natural beauty and wildlife areas which haven't yet been touched. They have to remain how they always were, stunning.

Bibliography

Com, Care2 .., ed. Animal Planet. Rep. Care2.com, 2010. Web. 09 Dec. 2012. <://animals.howstuffworks.com/endangered-species/12-animals-threa tened-oil-spill.htm>.

"World Animal Foundation: Get Active For Animals." Habitat Destruction 1 (n.d.): 1-2. World Animal Foundation. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. /.worldanimalfoundation.net/f/HabitatDestruction.pdf>.

Anna. "Consequences of Littering on the Environment." Articlesbase.com. Articlesbase.com, 9 Apr. 2009. Web. 09 Dec. 2012. <articlesbase.com/environment-articles/consequences-of-littering- on-the-environment-857858.html>.

Thompson, Andrea. "FAQ: The Science and History of Oil Spills." LiveScience.com. N.p., 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.