Bystanders: Loss of Responsibility
Bystanders: Loss of Responsibility
  • Baek Ga-eun cup repotrer
  • 승인 2020.06.09 15:59
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 When you hear the word environmental pollution, does it remind you of something? I suppose you can imagine a polar bear standing on a piece of ice while slowly sinking due to global warming, but that’s just a single aspect of environmental problems. You know it is kind of an old story that has been told for decades. While there are newly evolving environmental crises, how can we still be focusing only on global warming? Fine dust, climate change, and extinction due to habitat destruction ― all of these problems result from environmental pollution. People have been working on ways to improve the environment, but nothing has shown dramatic improvement. It is only getting worse and worse.

 

 Think of your daily lives. I surmise you must have seen a picture, maybe from YouTube or an Internet website, of an albatross dead from plastic trash filling its stomach or a video of a sea turtle suffering from a plastic straw stuck in its nose. Then you must have felt somewhat guilty or sorry, pledging to make some changes in your life. However, when you turn away, you just forget about it. No matter how much you felt sorry about the problems, you readily forget and ignore them just because you think it is none of your business.

 

 But here’s a question: do you honestly believe you’re irrelevant to all these environmental matters? The answer is no. You can never be unrelated to it. Every single action you have done in your daily lives, such as all the plastic bottles you have used, the amount of gasoline you’ve consumed going somewhere, and even all the old clothing you threw away, have contributed to the destruction of the environment.

 

 To believe that you have nothing to do with environmental issues is nothing but avoidance of responsibility. All of us are aware of the disasters happening on the other side of the world. We are just turning our eyes away from it and justifying it ourselves saying, “It isn’t a big deal. Probably others will do it on behalf of me.” You are just a cowardly bystander trying to avoid responsibility.

 

 I’m not saying that you should give up all the conveniences you have been enjoying. I’m just asking you to participate in small actions to make a better world - a world where our descendants can live long. It doesn’t have to be dramatic: you can start from a straightforward and easy action, such as reducing your use of disposable products, actively recycling, and using public transportation more often. Maybe you can live a zero-waste life. You just have to use your tumbler and reusable shopping bags so that you have no throwaways. Or you can live a semi-vegan life considering the negative impact of the livestock industry on global warming.

 

 Just make sure to pay attention to environmental problems. It might seem to be a little attention, but it can bring a huge change.


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