The Problems of Pollution

Wyatt Quillin

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

21 January 2022

The Problems of Pollution

      Probably the most pressing problem our society faces today is pollution. We've built our society on coal-burning and we can't just take it away immediately without suffering consequences. Instead, we can slowly implement ways to lessen the effects of pollution and eventually remove it from our worldly equation. In our discussion, there were a couple different problems that were brought up, from pollution in cities and shipping channels to plastics in the ocean. Vehicles cause an immense amount of pollution, and cities are affected negatively because they are so full of people and, in turn, cars. A solution that I researched was the concept of "super trees". This is something that the Houston Health Department and local non-profits have teamed up to orchestrate. The idea of 'super trees' is to plant large amounts of trees that meet certain criteria in terms of carbon sequestration, water absorption, canopy size, and more. These trees would be put in places with the highest density of air pollution like cities or along ship channels or in places of high flood risk. The forcasted outlook on this project is to have one million trees by 2030. This is just one example of how government-backed projects can really make an impact in the war against climate change. I think that governments have a responsibility to put funding into environmental protection no matter what. This can be done through various ways, including grants and government-funded organizations, or through laws passed to regulate corperations on eco-friendly production. This is the role of not only local governments but federal as well, and as citizens we should be a lot more aware about reducing our carbon footprint, actively reducing plastic usage, and doing things like donating to plant trees or going and doing it ourselves.

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