Saving the Earth has become the hot topic of the news today, rightfully. “Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects.” -Mark Ruffalo, Actor & Environmentalist.

Climate change doesn’t stop for the wealthy or the socially high, it affects the world and everyone in it.

As the world burns from climate change, we must not sit to watch it happen and so, I will provide some solutions to advocate to help our mother nature and reduce the negative effects of climate change.

The first step we take is to plant more trees and begin our journey with reforestation. Construction for buildings has populated the lands where nature should have remained. The state must take the steps necessary to plant these trees, and people in the community may join in. Each state/region globally, must designate certain plots of land for forests and other plants (begin reforestation there) so nature is able to provide us oxygen, food, fuel, medicine, etc. The World Economic Forum finds that, “In the fight against climate change, trees are a vital tool, as they have the ability to capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it for generations.”

After we have started reforestation, we must sustain the benefits. To do so, we must better manage our waste management system, as the system now has increased climate change/hurt our environment like the European Environment Agency claims, while also reducing the negative effects of pollution from factories. We must start having cities in each state/region that are “eco-cities”. Simon Elias Bibri, who is the department of Architecture and Planning in The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, defines an eco-city by, “...a human settlement which emphasizes the self–sustaining resilient structure and function of the natural environment and ecosystems.” These eco-cities have been implemented in many places and have seen enormous success as they are self-sustaining by using local materials/energy (wind, water, sunlight). To add, Journal of Architectural Engineering Technology found that, “...efficient land use, habitat preservation and restoration, effective transport management, efficient use of resources and enhanced quality of life for the occupants,” are all benefits of these cities. We will slowly reduce the negatives of factories and hopefully in the future, be able to have minimal effects of them. It is not possible to immediately remove factories, so let’s take small steps to the end.

Having unlimited resources and money could be used for a million things. Realistically, we do not have unlimited resources, which is why our climate/environment is suffering. It’s impossible to deny that human actions are at fault and so, with my solutions provided, we do not need unlimited resources or money. We need government support and community help. It is time for us to make up for our actions that hurt our one and only Earth.