Obesity: Finding a Solution

Global Warming and Other Manmade Environmental Issues

 While humankind may contribute to pollution and other unsavory deeds to our planet, government intervention at this time is merely a waste of funding. Emily makes a good point in her article that “Our citizens do not understand the severity and significance of the horrible state our environment is currently in.” This is probably true but some researchers even doubt the existence of global warming caused by carbon emissions that we impose on our planet. If humans are truly the cause for the increase of earth’s temperature because of our carbon output then recycling and reducing our energy consumption alone will have no effect. The government would have to do a major crack down that I don’t foresee as possible. The effects of the BP oil spill and the tons of garbage we put into our earth each year are minuscule in comparison to the effects of factory farming. American’s insatiable taste for meat is really doing a number on our environment. Over half of the water consumed in the U.S goes to the production of meat. And those animals that produce the meat we consume way too much of produce 130 times the amount of excrement that humans do. All of that waste produces methane (a contributor to the green house effect) and the run off pollutes the water that we drink. Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from a standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against climate change than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid. Unfortunately it is unrealistic to change the American diet. We are the fattest and greediest people on this planet. While it may be in our best interest to make legislation that will help our environment the economy is in no shape to provide funding for it. I support private sectors and other interest groups in their quest for environmental justice and for now environmental help is going to have to be left to those who are most concerned.