I am not trying to change your views, nor is this a tirade against the President (though I dare say he deserves one). These are simple facts, and they affect our lives. Though few of you who read this are old enough to vote, it is about our immediate future, and certain things need to be considered.

Fact One: Global warming presents a real and present threat. It is oxymoronic for U.S. citizens, driving vehicles the size of small villages, to claim to be worried about the slowly melting polar ice caps. Our government has turned a blind eye. The EPA's warnings about global warming were actually cut out of the White House's environmental reports! The problem certainly won't go away, so we can either think of alternatives or be struck down by our own ignorance.

Fact Two: Trees are important! For reasons both cosmetic and pulmonary, trees and plants are an invaluable resource. Many people reason that there will never be a shortage of vegetation because the idea that we could destroy our environment in a geological blink of the eye is too grand and terrible for their feeble minds to grasp. The results of such reckless ecological stupidity are taking their toll already. The demise of the plants that filter out pollutants and cause the greenhouse effect has not helped. In our commercialized world, sometimes a jingle is worth a thousand words. Hope this helps:
A world without trees
Is like a hug with no squeeze.
It's like Big Macs
without cheese;
What the world needs
is trees.

Fact Three: Long-standing environmental laws were written for a reason! Certain parties (ahem, Bush) are undermining guidelines that verged on inadequate in the first place. From the Clean Air Act to the sanctity of National Parks and Wildlife Reserves, no environmental law has gone unmolested. National Parks and Wildlife and the EPA are starved for money, a problem easily fixed by taking a few billion out of the $300 billion from the military budget. Organizations like Audubon and The Nature Conservancy are going to court to try to save as much of the planet as possible, but they are only delaying the doom creeping in on us.

These are issues that need addressing, and they are only the tip of the iceberg. We are inheriting this world, and we'll pass it on to our children. The steps to counter this impending apocalypse are tough but possible. As a world, we must unite to face these problems.