When I was in 2nd grade, in 1991, our teacher showed us a film about a girl from the year 2050. Her grandmother, telling her about how the world used to be, said, “There was no recycling, no clean energy, cars ran on non-renewable fossil fuels, and there were coal power plants everywhere.” The little girl could not believe it because in the world she knew, everything was recycled, her house ran on solar energy, was made of recycled materials, and there were wind turbines for energy; polluting was illegal. Styrofoam and other non- biodegradable/non-recyclable materials were not used and had been outlawed.
Now it is 2015, and we are still nowhere near the future world envisioned in this film because a few people in the world have money to make on oil, coal, and natural gas, at our expense, and at the expense of future generations. The vast majority of scientists (97%) support the idea that climate change is being caused by human activity. There are clean alternatives to oil and gas, and we ought to have made the transition by now.
Our environment is further polluted every day. Chemicals from hydraulic fracturing are spilled into drinking water, oil spills occur, and islands of trash poison the ocean. At some point, and that time may already be here, it will be too late to reverse the damage done.
This is an issue that all people should be able to agree on, regardless of political party, religion (or non-religion), age, or gender. If you believe in God, then by continuing with this way of life, you are killing God’s greatest gift to you- the planet Earth. If you believe there’s nothing after this, that we cease to exist, at the very least, you should try to leave the earth better than you found it. Everything we have including our Earth is on loan.