It’s Time to Organize an International Environmental Protection Agency :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

It’s Time to Organize an International Environmental Protection Agency After more than two centuries of destroying the Earth, we have finally come to the point where doing anymore harm will destroy not only our planet but also ourselves. The year is 2100. With average worldwide temperatures rising by six degrees Fahrenheit (EPA qtd Washington Post 1) numerous environmental problems have resulted. With the temperature rise Arctic and Antarctic ice caps began to melt, the resulting sea level rise wiped out numerous coastal cities. Along with the sea level rise came the destruction of ocean habitats and changing currents resulted in the death of numerous species of fish and sea life (Last 6). Temperature increase caused many diseases that only appear in warm parts of the world to spread across the Earth (EPA 5). And temperature rise wasn’t the only problem to plague the population. Over the past century the increase of car and air pollution helped to enlarge the size of the ozone layer. The increased amount of radiation coming in to the Earth made the number of cancer related deaths around the world go up 25 percent (Greenpeace 4). Not only did cancer rates increase due to radiation; immune system deficiencies due to radiation (McMichael 35) caused disease rates to increase. Because of emission increases in the 20th century the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubled since the beginning of the industrial age (Quayle 1). As many third world countries continued to develop, they also continued to raise their air pollution rates (CO2 rates increased by more than 300%, rates were especially high in China and developing countries in Africa and Latin America (Ciba 62)). Combined with the already existent pollution, the number of reported lung cancer and other air pollution related health problems rise substantially. Although over the past one hundred and fifty years more than a few environmental laws were past by individual countries to try and stop large companies from dumping their waste in unsafe and illegal ways (and places), little worked. This large amount of industrial waste (air, land, and water based) is one of the reasons the world is in such dire environmental straits. In the beginning of the industrial age many countries around the world did nothing to try and stop companies from pumping waste into the world. As time went on it became apparent that steps needed to be taken to stifle pollution.