"Going Green" is a hot topic among the nations many office holders . The thought
that humans have become so dependent on foreign oil is frightening on so many
levels. America has one of the largest footprints on the Earth. The people of this
Earth are attempting to find ways to curb this a detrimental trend and even put a
stop to it but little progress is being made due to lack of funds and lack of initiative.
"Going Green" is a huge topic that should not be dismissed out of complacency.
"The average humans footprint on Earth is 2.4 hectares six acres" while " The
ecological footprint of the average American is 12 hectares, 30 acres." says the
article Eco-footprint by Keith Addison of journeytoforever.org. These numbers are
highly staggering when you consider how many people there are on this Earth
and how many of them reside in America. The publicity of the effort to "Go Green"
while rising is still sadly under funded and lacking the push due to peoples relative
apathy towards the topic. The major problem is many peoples lack of awareness and
their fear that it will impede the pace at which they live this is a major cut down on
the acceptence of this eco-saving life style and is formed out of a lack of education.
Oil prices have been soaring since the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and
for awhile showed no chance of ever falling again ,but recently have shown a
sporadic decrease increase pattern. This is serving to keep people hoping for a
return to the days of cheap gas ,and better days for the consumer of the gasoline.
While this may seem a positive change to some it is seen as a drawback by the many
supporters of "Going Green" as it distracts from the long term effects of continued
use of petrolium based products which is a very large very noticable change in
climate due to the Greenhouse Effect. Oil reserves of the world are running low and
this is certainly affecting the prices of gasoline due to the Supply & Demand system.
America has oil reserves in Alaska ,but is holding it for hard times though it seems
that time is now they refuse to touch it due to the effect it would have on the
enviroment there. If they would tap this oil reserve ,and refuse to buy oil from
outside sources ,and focus all their attention on alternative fuels surely they would
make more advances towards a permanant solution.
Most people of the world know at least a little about what "Going Green" is ,but
most are afraid of doing so and instead are content to continue relying on oil as the
major resource of the world ,and continue to throw everything into the garbage
including recyclable material partly out of pure laziness ,and partly out of a "I'll do it
next time mentality". Another problem with "Going Green" is it is the result of hind
sight rather then looking to the future there are so many "should haves" and "could
haves" that it makes it looks more like pessimistic nostalgia then a project for future
betterment of the Earth. Many people fall pray to the idea that they can always
figure it out later when they should be figuring it out now and they think someone
else will solve it for them.
Many solutions have been proposed such as wind power , using wind mills and
other means of harnessing wind for electric power as an alternative means of energy,
which would only solve the problem if everything was rewired to run soley off of
electricity. Alternitive fuels have been proposed such as ethanol but many produce
dangerous by-products and would eventually create a problem of their own.
Electricity is one of the main keys to the future of energy as almost everything uses
it in part it only takes one more step to make it possible for everything to run off of
it and it is able to be made cheaply and has no harmful sides effects to its creation.
The people of Earth have slowly began to respond to the problems their are causing
their planet ,they can only hope their response has not come too late.
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