"These are the end times!" We've heard men scream this on street corners for not only as long as we've had streets, but ever since the first corner was invented (which was actually a surprisingly long time before we invented streets). We always seem to dismiss those screamers as lunatics, but what do we do when the brightest minds of our age start with the same old lines?
Scientists have been saying it for years now: climate change is killing our planet. Earlier this week, Obama made the biggest announcement in regards to this issue in American history. He introduced the Clean Power Plan, the first step to combat global warming that our nation has ever taken. The gist of the CPP is that we now have a federally-regulated limit on how much carbon pollution our power plants are allowed to release. Up until now, we had only limited soot and a few other toxic emissions. Before this new rule, power plants could release as much carbon pollution as they wanted. This has had a very negative effect on the health of not only our environment, as wildfires become more common every year, not to mention how we recently had the hottest year in recorded history; but our people as well. The asthma rate has doubled in the past thirty years.
Obama has not made many announcements without facing heavy oppositions, and this one is no exception. Many people throw out the preposterous idea that Obama is launching a war on coal companies and trying to force many coal workers to lose their jobs. However, the plan revolves around limiting emissions, not cutting jobs, and with the limit on carbon-related power comes a focus on alternative energy such as solar power and wind power. This means there will be more jobs available in a different field.
In all his meetings with the press on this matter, Obama speaks with such conviction that you really know that he's put a lot of effort into this plan. He reminds us that there is no Plan B for Earth because this is our only home. We are one of the last generations to be able to do anything to stop this pollution. We aren't even close to discovering a way to reverse the damage we've done. For now we can only slow the fall, hopefully to a complete stop eventually. So let's put our foot down to reduce our footprint. If we don't, who knows what will happen. Maybe that will be the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.
