Across the vast and diverse land of America, a debate over climate change, its existence, and how to best address the issue flickers like a California forest fire in the communities of fishermen and CEOs, immigrants and native born citizens, Democrats and Republicans alike. Such a culture of climate change denial has emerged. It has reached the Oval Office, with President Trump promising to pull out of the Paris Accord agreements earlier this year. However, this cannot be done until 2020. Currently, the U.S is still at the table for negotiations on the agreement.
The Paris Agreement ended another series of negotiations on December 15 of this year. These negotiations were more on the specifics of the guidelines laid out in 2015. 200 countries and their representatives pulled an all-nighter to debate how strict recording carbon emissions will be, how invested wealthy countries will be in aiding the development of technology to “go green” in poorer countries, and other partially vague baseline areas of the agreement.
Despite the Agreement’s triumphs, scientists and officials warn that it may not be enough. A groundbreaking U.N report —opposed by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, and the U.S —concluded that if countries were to halve their emissions in 12 years, permanent climate destruction could be avoided. Not a single country is on the way to this goal. The Trump Administration pitched the benefits of coal for the 2nd year in a row, angering many activists. In the capitalist society of today, where oil lobbyists manipulate the government and the dollar overcomes all logic, it is possible that climate change may not be addressed.
In the current climate, where the West burns in drought, the Southeast suffers under once-in-a-century storm after once-in-a-century storm, and the Northeast shovels itself out of several feet of snow, the people in not only the U.S but the world are waking up. Many wake up to different conclusions, but those who voice a cry of anger directed to the climate change ignoring/denying officials of their government can taste the bitterness of hope caused by the Paris Agreement. Despite its flaws, it is a start. A start to a future that our grandchildren could live to see on a habitable planet.
Sources:
- http://time.com/5418134/ipcc-climate-change-report-2030-crisis/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/05/we-are-trouble-global-carbon-emissions-reached-new-record-high/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.371587372d73
- https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-paris-agreement-and-its-future/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/climate/cop24-katowice-climate-summit.html
Plastic straws are the eleventh most found ocean trash. Americans use a total of five hundred million straws per day, which is enough straws to circle around the wealth two and a half times. Often type five plastic can be recycled. This is the type of plastic the majority of straws are made out of. Also known as polypropylene, type five plastic is often not accepted by curbside recycling programs. When plastic stars are not recycled properly, they end up in landfills or polluting the oceans. These plastic straws will never fully degrade and are not biodegradable. It would take two hundred years for a plastic straw to degrade, but the plastic will never make it fully off of the earth. When plastic degrades, it even releases chemicals that are toxic to the environment and wildlife. All the straws and plastic that is littered polluting the oceans harm marine life. For example, off the coast of Costa Rica, researchers removed a plastic straw that had been embedded in an Olive Ridley Sea Turtle’s nostril.
Thornton Academy - AP Language 2018-2019 