Can Individual Decisions Make A Difference?

Global warming is very serious and what we do today will effect us tomorrow. Human race is destroying the atmosphere and the very trees that have given us food and shelter for thousands of years. Plastic is suffocating our wildlife and polluting our very scarce Forests and our oceans. The ice caps our melting away leaving polar bears and penguins swimming for their lives and many people are continuing to pollute even when they know the consequences. Global Warming should be discussed thoroughly and actions should be taken before we regret it in the future. Even if we recycle, reuse, and replenish the resources we already have we will be making a difference and that's what counts.

I talk with my family about this and I try to educate them on it. I see alot of people doing the wrong things though and it is making the situation even worse.

Two of the biggest polluters in the world are the production of electricity through the burning of coal... and the passenger airplanes. An Airplane going from Australia to England create as much pollution during that one trip than if each of its 300 passengers drove their own car there. As the world population grows at the rate of 100 million a year... we constantly need to produce more electricity to supply them. Which means more pollution every year. Even when we reduce our pollution through new technology... 10 years down the track... with an extra billion people... we are back to square one. Industries have reduced their pollution by over 50 per cent since 1970... because of the new technologies used. Despite that... our level pollution remains the same as in 1970... because in the meantime we have added over 3 billion people on the planet. And as we keep adding that extra pollution into the atmosphere every year... this create the climat change. The atmosphere cannot get ride off the pollution at the same rate than we are pumping it into it. So it is constantly increasing. It requires some sort of pollution to produce anything and everything. And if you add up what each person use everyday of the year... and multiply that by an extra 100 million people every year... it is easy to see why our pollution is increasing. It is not the industries which are destroying the planet. It is the people making babies. Only zero birth rate can fix the planet. That's a fact. But nobody want to know about it.

It's my feeling on this subject that too many people don't care. Whether it's from a belief that we are not harming anything, to utter selfishness and a don't care attitude. (I will have two showers a day and I will stay under the shower for half an hour if I want to.) (I'd rather wear less clothes and turn the heat up and be warm as toast than to put more clothes on and turn the heat down) Big corporations would rather pay the fines when they get caught out polluting the environment than coming up with a plan to overcome the problem.

I do most of what was in that 50 things. A lot of it is out of my hands. I live in a small town in the bush and we don't have the means to recycle our bottles and cans etc. We take our stuff to the rubbish dump and put it in big bins that the council comes to take away. I rinse my containers in the hope that when they get to the other end they are recycled but I don't think they do. Most of my rubbish is packaging. I shred used paper and use it as garden mulch. What I would love to see is a sticker made available for a small cost that we can take shopping. Something along the lines of "Refuse to buy. Too much wrapping" and place the sticker on the goods. I know the supermarket will have to deal with it but it's either that or I unwrap the stuff at the checkout and let them dispose of the unnecessary wrapping. They would have to advise the manufacturer that this was happening and hopefully the message would get across. I mean, stuff is put into plastic, then into a box then the box is enclosed in plastic! What's with all that??? I know the packaging is designed to appeal so the goods sell more but forget that...just put it in one bag thanks. If your stuff is any good I'll use it again.

Well the fall of man might just be man himself, it does indeed seem fruitless at times when you see certain individuals just being completely ignorant especially when you go out of your way to change for the better, but the key here I think is to stick to it, and not give up because we find it to hard at times or give in to the temptations of doing whats easy instead of whats right.

I think that individual choices can make a difference. Because it's as individuals we influence or friends, family, and colleagues. When they us doing our part- recycling, watching paper consumption, eating local food, or whatever we're doing in own little ways to help save the planet- we inspire them to do the same and that's how real change starts.

Hi EvrWonder, Thank you for this post as it is such an important topic. I understand that sometimes it can seem fruitless but I think that we have to be more diligent then ever. I try to teach others, not only about the importance of recycling, but also about conserving. We use more than we need of so many things. We have to put pressure on big business to make necessary changes that will be good for the environment. There are good things happening, for example where I live, people are being urged to use cloth bags when shopping and these are available for about one dollar. Soon there will be a charge for every plastic bag that is used. I'm hoping that this will encourage everyone to purchase reusable shopping bags. Blessings.