How do environmental tragedies affect you on a daily basis?
Why should we care about them?
Environmental
tragedies are more than natural disasters.
Environmental tragedies can be brewing right now. They are unseen, lurking threats to the life
we know. Environmental tragedies change
everything we thought we knew about our immediate surroundings. When the people of Love Canal moved their
families into the neighborhood they had no idea the consequences that would
ensue for their children. The health of
every member of that city was impacted by something that they didn’t even
recognize until it hit them with tragedy.
In your opinion are environmental hazards something we
should be concerned about on a daily basis.
It is an individual’s
responsibility to look into their immediate environment and make sure that it
is a safe place to live and a safe place to raise children. There are agencies and programs that are able
to help protect land. It is not the
concern of every citizen to check every home for toxic substances. However, if a problem does arise, each
citizen should recognize if it was something near their home, they would hope
for the support of the community and the action of the government.
Why should we care about something that happened over 30
years ago?
We should
care now because that may have spilled over 30 years ago, but it was built,
polluted, and covered long before that.
The people of Love Canal were not aware of the problem because so much
time had passed. They assumed that since
they couldn’t see a problem—it wasn’t there.
If we make the mistake of assuming problems we cant see don’t exist then
we will be facing similar threats. We
should treat every threat as immediate because at some point in time—it will be. It may be years, or even generations later,
but it will have a severe effect on people if its not a priority.
Todd: I believe that if we aren’t concerned abot them on a
daily basis. They will be overlooked and forgotten and then they will become a
huge problem that will affect many people.
Mandy: Yes! There is a reason we call it “toxic waste” …out
of sight out of mind doesn’t really apply when your children wake up one
morning in your home and there is a drum of chemical sludge seeping through
your basement! We have to take precautions to correctly remove and dispose of
waste. We also need to be upfront with buyers about what they are getting
into—the Love Canal example s horrific. If we don’t decide to prepare for a
better future( waiting for someone else to do it) we wont have a future at all.
Carly: Environmental hazards are totally things that are
often overlooked, especially by college-aged students. WE need to be more
educated on environmental waste and hazardous materials. Thanks for posting this
article, because now I think more people will pay attention to this.
Taylor: I think that when buying a home or considering where
to reside for the long term, I believe that it would be important to consider
but not concerned with it everyday.
Elise: I don’t think that we should worry about it on a
daily basis. We can take precautions but we shouldn’t be constantly worrying
and trying to work on it. It would be good to do little things to keep it from
getting too much worse, but not always trying to figure it out.
Michelle: Yes. Environmental hazards should be a huge
concern. It not only affects us today and tomorrow but in the far future. Some
people may argue that businesses pay when they are the environment. What
companies don’t recognize is that the people living in the area are also
suffering and have to pay for the companies inconsiderate actions. It is not
only a corporation problem. Regular people choose to not be concerned with the
environment our of laziness. I’m not looking for immediate change but for a
gradual change that can improve a global problem.
Trevor: I think we need to be concerned about environmental
hazards. We cant change the poor choices that were made in the past, but we can
take steps today to ensure that the world is a better place for our children,
grandchildren, etc. We cant fix everything all at once but we can start making changes
now in order to prevent disasters like the love canal from occurring in the
future.
Alex: Yes, I think overlooking environmental hazards will
lead to an epidemic of unsanitary and a polluted environment.
Nick: Yes. It may not be our responsibility to have
factories stop emitting toxic fumes into the environment, but we should be
concerned about the things we can do to improve our environment so that its not
such a problem now and doesn’t becoe a bigger problem in the future.
Monika: I think people need to remember things like the
Clean Air and Water act were passed by the federal government and that huge
costs of helping the environment are worth our tax dollars to keep our future
safe. We are paying for the ignorance of the past and if people continue to
keep making mistakes like this, things like the love canal will happen over and
over again. Being aware is important, and communities can speak out.
Ginny: On a daily basis? Maybe not. But I think that this
problem is too overlooked because some people see the environment as capital
and nothings more, so they don not care for it as much as they should. The
dangers that overlooking these problems bring are potentially damaging to human
health. We should not wait until the public health gets significantly worse to
act, but instead we should learn from the last and do what we can to prevent
something like this from happening again. Overall, probably not something I
would personally be concerned with daily, but I do think we should be much more
considerate in how we interact with our environment.
Sharon: Yes. Environmental concern has to start on an
individual basis and become something we’re each aware of if we want to truly
make a difference.
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