Speech - Jacob Faulkner

War on Pollution

Do you enjoy living? You know, good ol' life on planet Earth? Course you do. Do you like life as it is right now? Well you shouldn't. People suffer everyday, and other people get away with making them suffer. Maybe your life in America isn't that bad, you have a nice swell life, and you're pretty happy. Christmas is coming up, and your folks plan to get you a car, what a total snag. You yourself, have a very lucky life. Some people aren't as lucky. For example, everyone in the Amazon. Corporations come into the Amazon, and take away the trees, pollute the water, and destroy the land. Legally. No one talks about it. It's just something that happens, because money can cover up all of the real facts. The facts that, if everyone knew and understood what the facts meant, would completely destroy corporations like Shell and Exxon, who have no disregard for the people of other countries, or all of the earth in the long run.

When people think of the Amazon, a good amount of them immediately think of the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon rainforest is the number one producer of oxygen on Earth, and helps the Earth's ozone protect itself from the sun's rays. That's not gonna happen for much longer. Many American corporations cut down acres of forestry a day, killing the ecosystem, killing the land, and killing the ozone. A quote from rain-tree.com says, One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second with tragic consequences for both developing and industrial countries." Why? Money. You can sell those trees for money, you can turn trees into so many things. Exponentially increasing your money is more important on the future of this planet, and the life on it.

The second thing people think of when they think of the Amazon is the Amazon river. That river is used by the people of the Amazon for fishing, the number one source of both income and food for the people. Documentary, "The End of Amazonia," says, "The hunters are so good at what they do, they are able to determine whether the specimen in their grasp, still unseen deep in the mud, is a male or female," because the economy is so dependent on fishing. Unfortunately, oil companies like Chevron dump oil into the water and destroy the river and the fish in it. People that eat the fish that have been poisoned by the oil get cancer. Fishing in the Amazon is coming to an end, ending both species of fish and lives of the people.

How do corporations get away with doing all of this? With money in the bank. The corporations screw over the Amazon, then go back to America and get money for it. Brazil recently passed a bill named REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It allows deforstation if the people residing in the area allow it. This doesn't actually stop deforestation, it just lets it continue legally, along tearing away the land for mining and fracking. Corporations either pay off or kill the people there to continue this. It also makes fishing, farming, or hunting in these areas illegal. In an interview, Chief Ninawa Huni Kui, president of the Federation of the Huni Kui, says, "I respond to those that say that it’s a solution, that REDD is not a solution to climate change. It is a false solution to climate change. And furthermore, indigenous peoples are not the ones that are causing climate change. In Brazil, in Mato Grosso, the biggest soy baron is receiving funding and subsidies from the Brazilian government to cut down forests."

People might say, "That's the law of Brazil, it's then ethical and doesn't need to be changed." The people of Brazil were not asked if they wanted this. It was something that Brazil as a government enacted on it's own, probably because other countries pay them to do so. For example, Democracy Now! states that, "in August of 2014, Germany gave the government of Acre $280 million reais to do REDD." The citizens and owners of the land are then paid off with small amounts of money that they don't know came from, and the ones that protest against it are killed. If you think that's still ethical, you probably think that 1984 is ethical because it's, "functional." Even if it was done by moral means, the end is still that Earth as a planet gets screwed over because it takes away the ozone, it gives gas companies money which allows them to continue melting the ice caps, and makes our planet barren and unable to sustain life. There is no smart counterarguement to saving the Earth.

The Earth needs the Amazon. Life is dependent on Amazon, and destroying it by deforsting, water pollution, and land destruction is erasing the Amazon from Earth, following with it the rest of life as we know it. When will we learn that for Earth to provide us with life, we need to provide it with respect?

Sources: 

1. Taylor, Leslie. "Rainforest Facts." Rainforest Facts. N.p., 22 Feb. 2013. Web. <http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm#.VI5gWyvF-T9>.

2. Huni Kui, Ninawa. "Brazilian Indigenous Leader: Carbon Trading Scheme "REDD" a False Solution to Climate Change." Interview by Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! Amy Goodman, 10 Dec. 2014. Web. <http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/10/brazilian_indigenous_leader_carbon_trading_scheme>.

3. Rachel, Chantelle, and Abbie. "Amazon River Pollution." Prezi. N.p., 17 Dec. 2013. Web. <https://prezi.com/cqrnxc4zmlup/amazon-river-pollution/>.

4. The End of Amazonia. Dir. Jorge S. Gallo and Ramon Salgado. New Atlantis Documentaries, 2002. DVD.