Saving the environment starts with end to individual greed

Basically, whenever energy is wasted, excess carbon dioxide gas is emitted, which contributes to the alteration of the world's climate. This is usually called global warming. Whether or not you know it, or care, global warming is a big deal. There is nearly universal consensus in the environmentalist community that it is the most pressing issue we face as a planet. Some pundits say that global warming is invented, a plot fabricated by liberals, because there is not yet totally conclusive proof that global warming exists. Ironically, I hope the nay sayers are right, but so far, most research contradicts them.

I think that part of the reason for this problem is greed. When it comes down to it, the majority of us go to Penn State to someday make lots of money. This is a fact I fight with every day. I used to think that money wasn't too important, now I'm not so sure. I can hear my idealism gurgling down the drain to make way for a more realistic approach that will hopefully give me a little bit more financial security in life.

It is normal to want to provide for yourself. I don't think that all of humanity has an obligation to move to cabins in the woods like Thoreau, where we would eat the berries that we find on the bushes, dig our own latrines and carry on with life in a feral state.

I do, however, think that excessive greed is a bad thing. A mentality where you are the most important person in the whole-wide world is a bad one for the environment, because when people start to think along these lines, they get self- centered. People think that because they work 40 hours a week, they deserve that new gas-guzzling status-mobile, and are far too proud to carpool. (I pick on drivers and their vehicles because driving accounts for the net of the average person's carbon dioxide emissions.)

It seems to me that many people in college fall into this same pattern of self-absorption that the generations that left us environmental problems did. Then, it is easy to become an oblivious suburbanite who doesn't care about the consequences of his or her actions. Suddenly, Ned Flanders starts to make a lot more sense, and the environment becomes the concern of "wacko" people who wear Birkenstocks and eat granola.

Go and be as successful as you can, good luck to you in doing so. But whatever you do, don't adopt the Rush Limbaugh and James Watt philosophy: That God put you here to get as rich as possible by any means possible, that selfishness is a right, so to hell with being the least bit environmental, because hey, for all we know, the world could end tomorrow.

Regardless of who you are, you have an obligation to care for the environment. You are not too busy. Your political viewpoints shouldn't forbid it. Your status in life doesn't allow you to abstain. You are not too important to drive a car that gets reasonable mileage, to recycle a newspaper or a pop can. (Yes, I call it pop.) As a human, you have a right to use resources, not waste them.

Nobody can make you do anything for the environment, which in this case, seems like a shame. I am asking those of you who don't care to start and encouraging those of you who do care to keep it up. If you are interested, the Environmental Protection Agency has excellent World Wide Webpages devoted to environmental issues, and most importantly, suggestions for things that average Joes can do to help. It's easy to be environmentally proactive if you look around a little bit to find out how.