How I Will Change the Global Environment

"Let's make Earth Day every day!" This phrase echoes across the world, and has been kept alive by a few individuals who are awake to the peril that our planet is in. Unfortunately, some dismiss these words as if they were meaningless, while others ignore them completely.

Earth Day is an annual "holiday" in April when people all over the world concentrate on saving their planet. When Earth Day was originally held in 1970, people across the United States united, supporting their beliefs on pollution and other earth-threatening issues. Earth Day's momentum diminished over the next two decades, but in 1990 it was revived for its twentieth anniversary. Once again people held festivities that informed the public of environmental hazards and what to do to prevent them. This time Earth Day was an international event, and millions around the globe participated. Unfortunately for Mother Nature and ourselves, the excitement of Earth Day has again decayed.

People talk regularly about their efforts to save our environment, but generally, these are empty words. Inside, people feel they have no power to stop the deforestation of our earth's lungs: the rainforest. They excuse themselves from recycling because after all, one person who doesn't recycle won't make a difference... but it does; one person plus another and another adds up to millions. These feelings of insignificance build up until people believe that they are doing all they can in order to save our world. They relay this belief to others, and soon society reaches a mental block, truly believing that there is nothing more they can do... but there is !!!

For far too long, people have preached about saving the world without putting their words into actions. In essence, they practice a lethally dangerous form of hypocrisy that will soon viciously devour our world and all of its inhabitants. The frightening headlines and statistics on our planet's steady decay and imminent death fall upon deaf ears. "Pollution reaches all-time high." "Our rainforests will be gone by the early 21st century." "Almost all of the world's landfills have been filled." "Several species go extinct daily, many of which haven't yet been discovered or catalogued." "The amount of disposable diapers that are used every year could be stacked on top of each other and reach from the earth to the moon and back seven times." We are guilty of hearing these graphic yet indisputable proverbs, gasping in horror, then forgetting about them while we attend to "more important" things.

"Every little bit helps," people respond when questioned why they recycle or do something else that benefits the environment. These wise words spoken by the few people who are awake to our earth's detestable status should be etched in stone for all to see, and enforced. Then maybe, just maybe people would stand up, take notice, act on saving the poor planet that gives us life, and truly "make Earth Day every day."