Reigniting the environmental Concern

      As the 2012 election approaches, presidential candidates debate largely on the topics of social and international concerns.

      Environmentalism has been thrown to the back burner, and many seemed to have forgotten that the environment still directly affects our everyday lifestyle and our future generations.

      For example, look at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill or the BP oil spill disaster. The spill date was on April 20, 2010, and the well was not officially sealed until mid-September of the same year.

     Nearly six months of unregulated and unaccounted oil covered the shoreline and the top surface of the ocean – and people only cared about what they could see.

     According to an article written by Abrahm Lustgarten from ProPublica, BP had to use a chemical dissolvent called dispersants to get rid of the surface oil.

     The solution made by two mixtures containing a certain amount of toxicity that has been associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems.

     Not only did this particular environmental catastrophe damage animal and plant life, but it also destroyed the fishing industry and tourism – and it can have extensive damage to the health of the human population in the area.

     Since then the United States government has continuously allowed BP to drill its product on our soil de- spite several past offenses – the largest being the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. Several people have called for the debarment of BP, but to cut off the third largest oil company in the world could create devastating repercussions in the global economy.

     Recently, Republican representatives have proposed a plan to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because they believe that the EPA is destroying small businesses.

     From the ThinkProgress publi- cation, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, "I want to replace, not reform EPA, because [the] EPA is made of self-selected bureaucrats who are anti-American jobs, anti-American business, anti-state government, anti-local control, and I don't think you can reeducate them."

      First, not only do I find Gingrich's statement to be extremely outlandish and cringe-worthy, but very ignorant as well. How was he able to say that the bureaucrats were self-selected? The EPA's Head Administrator is appointed by the president and then approved by the Congress.

      How is the EPA anti-American? The EPA represents America when disputing with other international corporations and countries about how they utilize our territory and demand that they respect it – the EPA fights for our health and well-being as a whole.

      And who said that the EPA is against American businesses? The EPA's goal has always been plain and simple: to protect our citizens from water, air, pollutions and any other environmental hazardous concerns, never to harm specifically American businesses.

     If a business is to get in the way of these safety concerns anyway, should they be allowed to operate? I say nay, especially because there are several other businesses out there that are more than willingly to conduct their business with a green sense of mind.

      Having environmental regulations and requirements is a must in our country, because it is indisputably more important to have the health of our population prioritized above the businesses who are greedily abusing the environment for their own profits.

    I am not saying that we can manage without businesses operating effectively in our country – I'm just saying that these businesses need to keep the environment in mind because our health and well-being are directly affected by their decisions.

     It would be nice and actually more helpful to assess presidential candidates if they debated about environmental issues, of how they intend to invest in alternative energy, of what kinds of "green" plans they have, of how they would like to encourage our country to preserve the lands we live on and what they would do personally to ensure that the air we breathe would be as clean as yesterday's.