Whether or not to let the damage to the environment be handled by government rather than by individuals is one of the most controversial topics today. While there are plausible views from the contrary, I believe, we, as individuals can play a cardinal role in solving this issue.
First of all, governments can put limitations and regulations on their people’s usage which contributes to the environmental damage. To give an instance, not only people but many large organizations use transportation every day, leading to air pollution since the burning of fuels including coal, oil, gasoline is used for electricity and transportation. Moreover, when a vehicle burns gasoline, it emits many toxic chemicals such as carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, etc. Therefore, if governments put constraints on the number of cars an individual can have or offer to transit by public transports since possessing many cars implies more pollution, the burning of fossil fuels would reduce by a certain proportion.
However, the impact an individual can have on the environment by changing their lifestyle is more suggestible and might result in greater improvements compared to government regulations. As I have said before, most of the environmental pollution is the consequence of human activities which means if all individuals are aware of how the outcomes of what they do are changing their surroundings and how they can improve it by just changing little things in their everyday life instead of being under the pressure of the government, the possibility of them letting it continue would decrease. For example, we can use paper or cloth paper while shopping rather than plastic bags as plastics are a hazardous pollutant of soil, and buying them would promote the usage and production of plastic bags. Almost four years ago, I started to use my handmade bags for shopping and this has made a significant amount of change in my everyday life and my surroundings. Also, my father used to take me to my school by car until I was in ninth grade when we learned how much money we have to spend on fuel and how taking me to my school every day by car contributed to the increase in air pollution in my home country and then I start to walk to my school which helped me to have an active lifestyle and be healthy. Moreover, it has been proven that people tend to follow someone who is at the same level as them instead of following someone in the upper position. Hence, if people are constrained or have limited access to something by the government, the likelihood of them following it would be less compared to being encouraged and led by local residents.
To review, the world’s governments can handle this concerning issue of environmental pollution by putting limitations on their people’s usages but without the participation of individuals, any constraints would be meaningless. Therefore, rather than being under the control to solve the damage, I believe individuals should handle it by making some changes in their lives voluntarily. In the future, I hope that more people would contribute to the restoration of the global environmental damage in any way they can.