Earlier this semester, I was warned in two of my classes about serious current environmental issues. While I consider myself an earth-conscious citizen, I didn't realize how truly environmentally unaware I was. An important concern brought to my attention was dangerously increasing smog in cities like Madison, due to a steadily growing and careless population. The level of local pollution became significantly more apparent to me when my astronomy professor assigned an observing exercise and recommended rural viewing to avoid the smog of the inner city.
Fortunately, this newfound awareness led me to some reassuring news regarding actions being taken to reverse this unhealthy pattern. Two significant plans being put into action include the encouraged use of fuel-cell vehicles and the implementation of recycling methods in the destruction and reconstruction of buildings. Executing these two methods of environmental improvement serves to reduce air pollution and the excessive use of landfills, but they also do much more.
Alternative options to gasoline-powered vehicles are available. Increasing production of fuel-cell vehicles will not only reduce the environmental damage inflicted on so much of the world, but should gain greater importance in a time of fuel shortages and consistently rising gas prices. This progressive technology not only considers long-term effects on the environment, but also rising fuel costs. Even traditional methods of reducing smog, such as public transportation, contribute to air pollution. The only way for them to actually help would be to switch to the hybrid buses being tested in Shanghai.
The second recent attempt to improve environmental standards is recycling deconstructed building materials. When a building is torn down, waste material will no longer have to be routed to landfills, as replacement buildings recycle material from the old sites. Old concrete can be used to fill the site, steel can be melted to create rebar and aluminum donated for the production of cans and other products. Recycling up to 70 percent of a building is feasible, if very time-consuming. But the process is worth the trouble. Not only will decreased production of building materials require builders to invest less money in the building process itself, but it will save energy. This sort of modification would therefore prove beneficial to taxpayers who worry about the costs of new building projects.
These ideas aren't so far-fetched; cities are currently considering ordinances to enact them. Why has this conservational concern become such a priority within international industries and government? The dire state of the environment can now be witnessed in almost any urban area of America, even in cities the size of Madison.
In fact, conditions arising from smog and fine particle pollution have caused groups like the Sierra Club to initiate their first \Clean Air Action Day"" earlier this fall to encourage residents to reduce their contributions to Health Advisories. Vehicles and coal-fired factories are said to be the biggest contributions to health advisories around the area, with consequences so high, measures of recognition, like those started by the Sierra Club, have become a necessity rather than a mundane precaution.
In a time of such environmental trouble, each step taken in prevention is worth the effort. Even non-environmentalists have reason to join the fight. As climatic changes make dramatic differences in the thickness of ice, the number of days tundra is solid enough for drilling is severely reduced. If fuel is already encountering a shortage, if drilling opportunities are appearing bleak, and if increased production of building materials is losing its likelihood, there is a progressive and feasible direction in which we can look. In the presence of such disturbing odds, fuel-cell vehicles and recycled building material may be just the answer to improving ecological problems and creating a sound environment.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
