Lower_Carbon,_Greener_Future

Name: Eva Kam Class: 6U No: 14 25th January, 2011 Lower Carbon, Greener Future Did you realize our earth has been constantly being badly treated and recently begging for humans’ help' It is obvious. It’s our fault! Despite the fact that global warming worsens our living conditions, it is actually essential for human beings’ habitat as we are warm-blooded animals. Greenhouse effects should have a positive effect on us if we protect our planet properly. Due to many human activities such as over-use of motor vehicles which emit greenhouse gases, smoke and smog produced from factories, etc, we have put on too much burden on our earth! Thus, global warming is now a hot issue for everyone of us to concern about. Recently, the Hong Kong Government has promoted different schemes to lead us to a low carbon living and greener future. For instance, the Government has introduced a “2+3” programme which encouraged the public to intake fruits and vegetables in a proportion of 2 : 3 everyday. Under this scheme, as we eat less meat, we are attaining a lower carbon living. You may wonder why eating meat would do harm the earth. The truth is that animals like cows would produce greenhouse gases (i.e. methane gas) through farting. If we reduce the intake of meat, this would in turn reduce the growth rate of meat products, thus make our planet greener. Moreover, the Government has been promoting three different colours of recycling bins to raise the awareness of the public on the importance of recycling stuff in the past ten years. This is an effective way of living greener as we dump less stuff as rubbish which could in turn save our living environment and make it a better place for all humans. I once came into my mind an important attitude towards low carbon living and building a greener future, only one word – SAVE. “All men are selfish.” That’s what I’ve learnt from Economics. Human always maximize their wants and at the same time, they have to forgo something as the resources are scarce before they could get what they want. Therefore, people tend to have a sense to save something before they could achieve something. For example, saving money is one effective way. If you love to save your money, you will definitely buy less stuff back home. Your home will then have less unnecessary stuff since you will plan more precisely during shopping. This would lead to a decrease in dumping non-useful stuff to the landfill. Carbon usage is then reduced as less rubbish would be burnt in incinerators, thus leading your life to a greener future. We should never think that the little change we have made would do no big difference to our living environment. You can imagine when every single citizen started to try their very best, striving for a better, greener future, the effect on our Mother Nature would be for sure very positive. We should never underestimate the power that we have got as we are the host of this planet. We bear the obligation to protect our earth and aim for providing a sustainable future for our next generation. So stop being selfish and “Act Now”!