Major Project
Victor Fiscella
English 170
Professor Apuzzo
25 April 2023
It’s Up to Us
Margaret Human laid on the ground in Washington D.C. in agony while a medic began to treat her. She was too into the moment and didn’t think of the consequences as she decided to knock over a barrier set up by the police force and was swiftly pepper-sprayed by the officer standing right beside her. Although this moment would stay in her memory, her desire to protest for the better of the planet wouldn’t be affected and she would go onto protest for the next 40 years. She would divert her attention later in life to protesting the destruction of our environment and the growing threat of climate change.
The very topic of changes to our planet’s ecosystem has been a very contested and complicated issue not just for the United States but for the entire world. With protestors and climate activists on the side of protecting the planet and most governments and giant businesses on the side of keep doing what they’re doing, progress has only moved slowly over the years. More often than not, it’s up to protestors like Margaret Human and protest groups to get out, raise awareness, and try to change the laws so that our environment and planet are better protected. There’s only one planet Earth so it’s vital that we try to protect it from harm. It’s not always doom and gloom, though. Because of protestors like Human, we’ve actually made progress on protecting our planet through like having the local governments make changes to protect our environment. We are definitely more aware of the ways we affect the planet than we were 30-40 years ago. Positive changes are happening, just slowly and we need to speak out.
The only way for the destruction of the environment to end and for climate change to be stopped is if we come together and raise our voices. By protesting and raising awareness we can alert our governments to the issues at hand. Margaret Human’s story of protesting shows how the fight can be difficult, but it can make progress. Human has been a part of a local climate-protection group called Extinction Rebellion and they have set up protests all around the local area to raise awareness and get changes to how we deal with the environment. She had a news article written about her when she decided to chain herself onto a tractor to block the entrance to a power plant at the age of 80. She protested in New Paltz and eventually got the town government to make progress and start protecting the local ecosystem. She has even made a list of steps she believes the group should take to help the community. While some groups argue that the most important parts of these protests are to stay peaceful, as it avoids any controversy and allows the message to reach more ears, Human believes that the group may have to start becoming violent as our climate is starting to show more and more effects of being harmed. She said that although some in the group still believe that peace is the way to go, many members say violence is going to become necessary (Human). Mallika Talwar writes in an article that violent protests may or may not raise positive awareness for a group and their message while peaceful protests actually spread the message to more people (Talwar). While Extinction Rebellion is mostly geared towards preventing climate change, there are many more threats to our planet that other groups and protestors are currently trying to prevent.
It would be impossible to create a list of all of the current dangers and threats that our environment and climate currently face. While some of these dangers come from the average citizen like when someone litters, wastes electricity, or illegally dumps chemicals down their sink, most of it comes from giant companies and corporations when they cut down forests, expel dangerous chemicals into the sky from their factories, and spill hazardous materials into our water supplies. We’ve lost around 3% of the world’s forests over the course of 25 years and areas like Brazil are reporting constant losses as demand for timber has been going up and major companies need the land to raise farm animals like cows and chickens (Dangel 16). The world’s water supply is always in danger, including our sources in the United States. John Hoornbeek said in his book, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) reports that about 40 percent of the nation’s waters are impaired (USEPA, 2000A; USEPA, 2007). And, over the last decade, state environmental agencies and the USEPA have declared that more than 37,000 impaired stream segments and other water bodies are in need of restoration efforts” (27). Considering that only about 2% of the world’s water is from freshwater sources and 40% of our own freshwater sources are impaired, this should be a very high priority for our government and a major concern for everyone living in the United States but not many citizens are even aware of the current dangers. Climate change is another big danger to our planet and most of the world chooses to ignore the signs for a multitude of reasons. Kaufui Vincent Wong explains in his book, “There has been a great amount of talk about “global warming” and “ climate change” over the past few decades. However, many people do not completely understand what is happening to the planet. Additionally, others do not believe that global warming is really an imperative issue, if an issue at all. These beliefs come mostly from a lack of information on the issue at hand” (61). The fact that climate change occurs over a span of many years and the fact that you can’t directly film these changes makes it that many are in complete denial of its existence plus the fact that certain parts of our government rally their supporters with the falsehood that climate change isn’t real.
The fact that we as a country fight each other over whether or not these threats against our planet are even real is a sign that things need to change quickly. In the United States, it’s mostly the republican/right side of the political spectrum that push this narrative, so a large portion of the U.S. simply don’t believe the damage to the environment is all that extensive or that climate change even exists. Combined with the fact that countries like China don’t care about pollution or the environment, we are doing massive amounts of harm to the planet. There are sometimes that the government tries to help like when Joe Biden listened to what his supporters wanted and rejoined the Paris Accords to limit our greenhouse gas emissions after Donald Trump left during his presidency but there is still more that they need to do.
There’s only one planet Earth and it looks like colonizing Mars is going to be something beyond our lifetimes so we should try our best to protect our home. People like Margaret Human and organizations like Extinction Rebellion are still protesting and putting their all to save the planet but they can always use more help. We have a lot of factors against improving our situation, but we are making some progress.
Dangel, Ulrich. Turning Point in Timber Construction : A New Economy, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/newpaltz-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4768924.
Hoornbeek, John A.. Water Pollution Policies and the American States : Runaway Bureaucracies or Congressional Control?, State University of New York Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/newpaltz-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3407203.
Human, Margaret. Personal Interview. 19 April 2023
Wong, Kaufui Vincent. Climate Change / Kaufui Vincent Wong. New York, [New York] (222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017): Momentum Press, 2016. Print.
Talwar, Mallika. “Do Climate Protests Shift Public Support for Climate Change Action?” Yale Environment Review, 23 Feb. 2022, https://environment-review.yale.edu/do-climate-protests-shift-public-support-climate-change-action#:~:text=The%20study%20results%20reveal%20that%20climate%20protests%20are,This%20directly%20contradicts%20claims%20that%20protests%20are%20self-defeating.