After taking this course I have a whole new perspective on how our planet is being polluted; I’ve learned extensive amounts about water pollution and how that, in the long run, is going to defunct a multitude of animal species and eventually destroy our planet’s ability to sustain life. I never thought someone else was as interested in this topic until I talked to a close friend of mine and found out that she grew up in an area that banned water pollution near recreational swimming zones. Of course that didn’t stop her city from dumping the pollutants into the water just further up the coast, but it was a step in the right direction. She spoke about how beautiful and pristine her beaches were; how, even during the rainy season, the water was still clear and fish still swam near the coast. Thats how beaches are supposed to look; however, the unfortunate truth of this story is that this is not a common reality for most coastal areas. Many beaches are polluted to the extent where they are closed off to the public because if someone swam in the contaminated water they could get extremely ill or even die. So why is this still legal? Why is it legal to pollute water to the extent that it may kill people if they swim in it? Why don’t we consider marine animals’ lives when creating these laws? My friend and I asked ourselves these questions and tried to come up with reasonable explanations as to why humans have created laws and norms that put human beings at the top of the pyramid of life.

Should we be proud that we are at the top of this so-called pyramid? Personally, I don’t think so. So why is it an invisible norm that everyone knows is true but no one will acknowledge? My friend and I came up with the hypothesis that most people were ashamed to belong to the “human” category when speaking about global destruction. No one wants to be responsible for ending not only the human race, but every single animal race on this planet because they overused and abused the planet’s resources. We don’t believe people are intentionally trying to destroy our home planet but we agree that people are generally afraid of change and because the laws that were implemented regarding the well-being of our planet were done so such a long time ago people today have grown accustomed to them. Even though these laws were created during a completely different time period (and environmental period) than today, people still assume that they are equally applicable today as they were fifty years ago.

What we finally came up with was an educational problem; people were not completely educated on the matter because news and media organizations won’t air information about it enough to draw people’s attention. Also, people wont find the time nor interest to educate themselves on a subject that isn’t portrayed as a top matter by their trusting news sources (which are funded by the companies doing most of the pollution). If news and media providers cared more about our planet and the future of our children than their income then our planet would have enough momentum to change laws and ideas about pollution and global destruction. But for now, we are stuck in a world that cares more about individual success than the success of all beings on this planet; that’s the sad reality we have to live with.