I don't know about you, but I'd really love for my children's children to live on this planet too, or at least not die a horrible death from our reckless and selfish decisions. Change needs to happen, we have to do something, and it needs to start now.
When I was little I didn't know what taking care of our planet even was. It wasn't talked about, or at least no one around me was talking about it. As I grew up, it seemed to become more important to people, and for very good reason. Yet ironically, it seems like no one doing anything about it.
I have recently become more aware of the major distress our beautiful planet is under and it breaks my heart. I have chosen to use refillable water bottles, skip the straws at restaurants, and try and educate the ones around me about our impending doom.
I am only one person and we can't make a major change unless others decide to do so, as well. If you want your grandchildren and the ones after them to enjoy life on this place we call home, then we have to make changes now.
Some things I have mentioned to friends and family have gotten an eye roll, but imagine if my entire family listened? That's actually a small but size worthy chunk of waste out of our oceans and wildlife.
What about if others decided to make a change, too? Your decision to make changes will make an impact either directly on the planet or on the people around you who have a choice to make, too.
Let's talk about some pretty scary facts: Americans alone create nearly 10.5 million tons of plastic waste every year and only recycle less than 2% of it. Overall, 14 billion tons of trash finds its way into our oceans EVERY YEAR. This plastic and most of the trash does not go away, it gets smaller sure, but it doesn't go away.
Ever heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP)? Yeah, it is also known as trash island and sits in our ocean. It is now twice the size of Texas. Full of what? Our waste, trash, plastic, and you guessed it, all things that cannot breakdown and go away.
Let's talk about trees. Cue the "tree hugger" name calling, but I'm sure you would be pretty sad if you walked outside and there weren't any trees, oh wait, you'd probably be dead.
Deforestation is a problem that needs to stop. Stop and think before building your businesses and your condos or whatever. We won't be here to enjoy these short term things if you don't think about the long term effects tearing down trees and land create.
Forests are only about 30% of our planet now. The Amazon rainforest? We've destroyed almost 20% of it. Trees across the globe as a whole? We've cut down 46% of them. SO WAKE UP.
We may not get all of our oxygen from trees but imagine if we didn't have any left, because that is the road we are on right now.
No, this won't all happen at once, but we are certainly on our way to taking out the planet. Our grandchildren and their children will have it worse to deal with if they have anything at all.
