Will We Ever Save the Planet

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Tiara Bostock Beth Mckinney GSW 1110 1 September 2011 Will We Ever Save the Planet? In No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, the author talks about his journey while he decided to take his family through the process of going green. When a person thinks of going green they think simple things like recycling, turning off the water when brushing their teeth, and using less paper. However, Beavan takes it a few steps further. He wants absolutely no impact on the world. He stops using any type of transportation other than his feet or a bike; he doesn’t create trash, and uses no form of electricity. The experiment, which he conducted for a year, sparked a lot of interest and brings up good points to argue. One question that popped up in my mind while I read the book was will people ever actually be able to go green enough for the world to be saved? Though it sounds like a good idea, I don’t think we as people, especially Americans, are capable of doing the hard work. Americans are too selfish and addicted to their lifestyles to ever be able to save the planet. This can be seen through the excessive use of pollutants and the lives led by American citizens. Americans, especially in bigger cities like New York, are accustomed to using all sorts of things that are bad for the environment. Trains, cars, subways, airplanes, and buses all leave behind pollutants in the air that eventually become harmful. We also tend to use excessive amounts of products, such as paper. When we use this paper trees have to be cut down. In the long run, cutting down so many trees can result in loss of oxygen, obviously without oxygen we cannot breathe. Electricity is also something that we as Americans take for granted. We tend to leave lights on, use all sorts of cords to plug up phone chargers, TVs, laptops, microwaves, curling irons, and the list goes on. The majority of these things are
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