Water pollution occurs mostly, when people overload the water environment such as streams, lakes, underground water, bays or seas with wastes or substances harmful to living beings.I believe that our world can be powered by green energy. This means that earth can be powered by using solar panels, wind meals, and hydroplants. This will decrease our levels of pollution and make our world greener.

Zoe Snortum-Phelps
Ms. Laws
Biology- 6th period
29 Sept. 2016
         It is true that we need to find better, greener ways to fuel our world. As we see climate change happening in the world around us, we need to find proactive solutions in order to stop the warming of the Earth. Each person can have a great positive impact if they take small steps to reduce their carbon footprint. But the bigger problem cannot be ignored; cities and federal governments need to find ways to reduce the overall effects of carbon emissions, including retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient and installing more energy-efficient ways of generating power, such as windmills and solar panels (Responses). This won’t be easy, but the benefit is clean and healthy future.
    The biggest cause of carbon emissions is electricity, which accounted for 30% of US-produced greenhouse gases in 2014 (Sources), so the first thing we as global citizens should do is reduce our use of electricity. The solution to this can be obvious, such as turning off lights when you leave a room. But this is only a s mall part of a person’s electrical footprint. The bigger things include air conditioning and heating, which account for half of most Americans’ electricity bills. There are many ways to reduce heating and cooling energy besides just turning them up or down, such as regularly maintaining them and insulating your house to prevent heat or cold from escaping. Other easy things to do to reduce your carbon footprint include walking, biking, or carpooling instead of driving and reducing, reusing, and recycling as much as possible.
    Not only do individuals need to reduce their footprint, but the larger community needs to work towards a cleaner future. Renewable energy is already becoming more widely used, but some sources, such as solar energy, are not always available in specific locations. Therefore, new technology, such as grids that reroute power from other sources when sunlight is not available, (Responses) must be created and used to maximize the efficiency of renewable resources. Entire buildings can be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, such as the Empire State Building in New York recently was, reducing the expected energy use by 38% (Responses). In addition to solar and wind power, new sources of fuel, other than fossil fuels which generate most of our electricity (Sources), must be found. Scientists are attempting to create a biofuel from plant material such as algae, but the potential drawbacks are still being considered (Responses). We, as global citizens, must do everything we can to be a part of the big solutions, such as new fuel sources, and the small ones, like walking to and from school.

Works Cited

“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” United States Environmental Protection
         Agency, USA EPA, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/source … house-gas-
         emissions.
“Responses to Climate Change.” Koshland Science Museum, National Academy of
         Sciences, https://koshland-science-museum.org/exp … nce/earth-
         lab/responses.