The Earth is in Our Hands

 Anyone with children or planning on having children would say that it is their duty to care for that child; watching their child get set would be the worst thing possible and watching them get hurt makes them scared and miserable. We need to learn to treat the earth as if it is our child; after all the way we treat it will affect our child, our child’s child, our child’s child’s child, etc. We as humans hold the planet in our hands. Instead of cradling, respecting, and loving it, we throw it to the ground and stomp on it. We take all that we want and not what we need; while there are millions of people not even getting nearly what they need.

 Everyone on the planet right now has an effect on it. I believe we all have duties to protect future people from the adverse effects of climate change. The Earth is getting hotter and hotter day by day, the air quality is getting worse, the oceans are becoming a third garbage can--the second being the ground we walk on, and people are going to suffer from this so horribly in future generations. Now we cannot tell third world countries where their inhabitants live on $5 a day to step up their game and only use environmental friendly ways of going about their lives. The people who can’t afford it and are not educated on the topic should not be considered a huge part of the “we” with responsibilities of protecting the world. So, who should be held responsible? We can control and regulate everything that every single individual on the planet does, but we can regulate big business and those who have so much money that they won’t even be able to spend it all in their lifetime. There are 100 companies in the world that have been reported for 71% of the global climate change, so, unfortunately, us going from plastic water bottles to our own reusable ones, using reusable bags, eating low on the food chain, driving and flying less, and using clean energy are all awesome habits to get into, but it affects a puddle of our planet’s problem and leaves an ocean. We can do so much individually, but the wealthy and big businesses are still in power. There are many big businesses who make claims that they will, by 2050, emit zero greenhouse gases, but what about the next thirty years before then? Changes need to be made now. Individuals can start by not supporting these businesses anymore, but still, big businesses create pretty much everything we need, so what good is that to us.
Older generations did not do much to care for us and the well being of our future planet, but this doesn’t mean we need to be the same. It is good for us to make sustainability our lifestyle (and we should), but regardless of what we do, the wealthy are still in power; when I say wealthy, I do not mean those who get to go to a good school and those who get to live comfortably in a good home and place, I mean those who have too much money to be spent in a lifetime and the businesses who create the largest problems on our planet.