Megan Grubaums

Professor Pasley

Writ 310

06 Nov. 2015

Go Solar; Just Do It

Imagine a place where you could go and avoid ever breathing smog. What does that place look like? Is it acres of pasture covered in wildflowers with long green grass blowing in the crisp breeze, or is it a beach covered in fine white sand and swaying palm trees? Imagine being able to breathe air that fresh all of the time. By putting an end to society’s heavy reliance on burning fossil fuels to make our electricity, we could positively affect our air quality. We could achieve this by ditching the fossil fuels and looking forward to the new technologies that are available, like solar power.  Solar power is a clean, efficient and economic choice that will reduce our carbon footprint, leading to a healthier planet to hand down to future generations.

The term “future generations” can seem a little impersonal, as if it does not have a an effect on you. “Healthy planet” sounds like something someone could convince themselves they are achieving by recycling their water bottles. Think about it this way, your baby, your grandbaby and all of the children you see should be able to breath clean air. Those little pink lungs inside the chest of that little child deserve to stay pink. Your child or grandchild deserves to be able to grow up and have babies that aren’t at risk for asthma, or aggravated bronchitis, or even cancer or brain damage. I am not kidding.

Driving past a fossil fuel burning power plant conjures up images of nasty smoke stacks pumping tons of exhaust into the atmosphere. Burning coal for example, to make electricity is just not worth it and is the main causes of smog. Smog is that nasty layer of crud in the air that burns the throat and nostrils with each breath. Those filthy smokestacks emit lots of fun stuff, like CO2, about two BILLION tons of it per year, not to mention toxic ash, and SO2 (sulphur dioxide). Those emissions also include mercury, lead and uranium. Those are super toxic heavy metals, the kind that cause brain damage. That is scary. Just ask anyone that lives in, let’s say Los Angeles about the smog and what it is like to breathe it. But there are so many famous wealthy people that live in Los Angeles. No, not even wealth can protect the lungs from charring on a smoggy day.

Sadly, smog creeps into more than the air. In Southern California we are suffering from years of drought, so we pray for rain on a pretty regular basis. The sad thing is that when we finally get rain it has to fall through all of that toxic smog. All of those toxins, particularly sulphur dioxide (SO2) get caught in those lovely little raindrops. Now we have what is called acid rain.  These tainted drops of acid rain fall on our crops and into our oceans and rivers. So the smog not only affects the air that we breathe, but the water we drink and food that we eat.

The smog threatens the quality of the air that we breathe and causes the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to grow. The two billion tons of CO2 that is constantly being pumped into the atmosphere every year is a major contributor to climate change. How does climate change affect us? Isn’t it just the polar bears who have to worry about it? Think of things like extreme drought and endless high temperatures right here at home. This year it has taken until November for Southern California to get some relief from the months of relentless 80 and 90 degree temperatures. It was a brutally hot and dry summer, but the climate in Southern California is not naturally brutal. Global warming due to climate change is to blame for that.

For the southwestern states in particular, isn’t it ludicrous to pollute the air everyone breathes by burning pollutive fossil fuels to make electricity for running fans and air conditioners? People have air conditioners running in their homes and offices because of the hot sun and high heat. Funny isn’t it? There is all this extreme sun day after day that is going to waste. Going to waste? How do you waste the sun? Not harnessing the sun’s abundant power is wasting it. When fossil fuels are burned they pollute the earth, but the oil companies get rich, rich enough to afford to block easy access to solar power and to push the fossil fuel agenda. It is up to us to change anyway.

Try driving by a solar power plant. There is no smoke. There are no disease causing pollutive emissions spewing toxic ash and heavy metals into the air you and your children breathe. It isn’t even ugly, no nasty stained smokestacks billowing with poisonous clouds, just shiny panels worshiping the sun. Invest in solar energy, it’s easy. Start small, be an example to your neighbors. Line your walkway with solar powered lights. Notice how there is no affect on your electricity bill? There is also no smog being produced at some filthy power plant to light those lights. If everyone changed just one power sucking item to solar, it would start to make a difference. You could make a difference.