Our Environment and how to save it

Our environment consists of water, soil, rocks, plants, and people. Although we can cut down a Christmas tree in 2 min, that tree could have taken 10 years to grow. Maybe there was an oil rig finished. That oil that you put in your car and waste in a week, took millions of years to form. These are just some examples of how people are ruining the environment. Below are three stories on how the environment got ruined.

Long ago, before the Spaniards came to the Americas, some of the natives had a boat and found Easter Island. They loved the land. So they made statues of their gods. It became less of a tribute and more of a hobby. They were using up all of their trees so all the birds left. They were eating all the fish so the fish were gone. And soon all their resources were disappearing so the few resources left were being fought over. Soon, war broke out and the statues they made were being destroyed. The environment was wrecked. The people who survived moved away and back to their original home.

Another example of a ruined environment was the Dust Bowl. It all started around World War 1. After the war, Europe’s economy was destroyed. The land couldn’t grow any crops. So the USA sold Europe wheat. The stock market sale for wheat increased dramatically. Farmers in the USA used up land to give to Europe. Then the stock market crashed. Sales for wheat dropped just as dramatic as it rose. What were the farmers going to do with all the wheat that they grew? Most farmers dropped their wheat onto the road. It was a terrible natural disaster unlike others. It didn’t last hours or days. It lasted for around a decade. But what came next was way worse.

While people were trying to get out of debt, there was a serious drought in the Great Plains. The rich soil turned to dust. Then, on one windy day, a big dust storm came. Down there the storms were called black blizzards. Those big storms that would haunt the farmers and their families for years began known as the Dust Bowl. How did the Dust Bowl come to be? Well, farmers had plowed up so much land that the soil had lost all its minerals. Then, the drought took all the moisture out of the soil so it became dust. For most of the 1930’s, the black blizzards came and killed many people. Even worse, the president didn’t even care. President Hoover thought all the problems would simply just go away. He finally realized that it was true when some of the dust came over to D.C. When Franklin got elected for president, he made some acts to help the farmers who were in the Dust Bowl and dealing with the Great Depression.

The last and most recent example of a ruined environment was the Deepwater Horizon. On April 20, 2010, more than a hundred people on the oil rig got hurt. 11 workers were killed. But it goes deeper than that. What happened was there was an oil spill that exploded. After that, the oil was in the Gulf of Mexico. It hurt many people physically, mentally, and emotionally. The workers go hurt from the explosion. Their families were scared and hurt. Businesses had to close down because of the oil. It was a hard time for everyone. Now people are second guessing oil drilling in Alaska.

In conclusion, the atmosphere, the earth, and the ocean are all important, and we need to take care of the environment.

Brace, H. (Director). (1995). Cycles and Soils [Motion Picture].

Geographic, N. (Director). (2010). Mysteries of Easter Island [Motion Picture].

Jenson, N. (Director). (2009). Deep Trouble: the Gulf Coast Oil Spill [Motion Picture].

Pratt, H. (Director). (1972). The Lorax (original) [Motion Picture].

Roberts, B. (2011). Dust Bowl Disaster. Reading A-Z.

Stanton, A. (Director). (2008). Wall-E [Motion Picture].