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April Lu

Ms. Gardner

English 10H, Per. 6

11 November 2016

Letter to the Next President Draft

Dear President Elect of the United States of America,

My name is April and I am a highschool sophomore in Petaluma, California. With this letter, I

want to address what I believe is the worlds greatest issue: pollution. Since the beginning of time,

pollution has lived among the Earth and it reserves a permanent place in our lifestyle. Our waste

continues to build up until it one day becomes uncontainable. As our leader, you need to contain us from

one day, reaching this point.

This has been one of my greatest concerns since I was very young. When I was in third grade, I

first learned the outcome of our excessive pollution. A local organization, Cool the Earth, introduced its

program to my elementary school and educated the students on global warming and how we contribute to

it. I was eight years old and I thought the world was about to end. Now, in my fifteenth year, I know that

we still have time. The clock, however, continues to tick until our planet becomes forever damaged.

While we currently do so much to control pollution and its effects on the

environmentpromoting public transportation, saving energy, using environmentally-friendly

productsthere are many more of these issues that people arent aware of. Global warming is not the

only concern about air pollution: our atmospheric wastes cause many health issues and deaths in the

human population. We cannot save the animals by just keeping our garbage in the bins: millions of

animals fall victim to our careless waste-dumping every year. I am aware that there is no way to stop

pollution completely; however, if we consider all the damage done to our once-flawless planet, we can

commit to limiting pollution and cleaning up the mess we have already made.
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The earth is not ours to do whatever we wish with it. When we dont respect our shared planet,

our consequences are sometimes thrown to the animals. To bring attention to the humans abuse of power,

Care 2, a petition foundation, points out, Current regulations allow cruise ships to legally dump untreated

sewage and other waste once the ships are three miles from shore. They release massive amounts of

bacteria, and pathogens, and medical waste, and oils, and detergents, and heavy metals and other harmful

substancesall of which are toxic to the marine life. Many people are also unaware of the extreme cases

of noise and thermal pollution that are causing animals to go extinct.

It may not be so hard to think about the animals, but do we realize the effects on us? Many people

are not always so worried about death when it comes to pollution. However, they do not relate it to the

health issues of atmospheric waste, which include asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, lung and heart

diseases, respiratory allergies, and the 4.6 million people, estimated by the World Health Organization,

that die directly from these every year. We must protect ourselves by first understanding the outcome, and

then cutting off the source.

As a privileged teen in a first world country, I understand how some people see pollution solely

as a global issue and rely on the fact that pollution does not always affect everyone. Here in the United

States, very few pollution cases are life-threatening; still, we cannot pretend that the developing countries

are not suffering. In March 2008, eighteen children under the age of five died in a Dakar neighborhood in

Senegal. The children all died from acute lead poisoning due to constant exposure to lead dust in the air,

soil and water, Pure Earth, an organization working to annihilate toxic pollution, reveals, At the time,

the main economic activity in the town was the informal recycling of used lead-acid car batteries. There

are still places around the world where people dont realize the harm they are inflicting on themselves and

the people around them. Pure Earth also stresses that solutions already exist. We have the resources, we

just need to commit to the plan.

The Earth itself cannot ask us for help, we must offer to help it ourselves.
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We must offer a large-scale national program that can educate our people and lead us to the

greener world.

We must offer our commitment to the solutionone that may not be a huge step for

mankindbut rather something simple, starting with a ride on the bus.

We must offer a pledge to the plan, a pledge to say that we can and we will put an end to

pollution so that it may not harm us or our planet again.

This is no easy task.

We always hear that; we know thatwe just dont understand it. Difficult means possible, and

possible means hope, and hope means that we cannot give up. We are reluctant to help because we dont

see the hope. You need to make it known so that we may all fight together with the will to win.

While we are polluting the Earth, the Earth is polluting us. Who then survives when everything is

damaged in the end?

When I was a young child, I was informed about what pollution can do to our planet and I was

motivated to live greener. If now, every child is informed and motivated to make this simple change to

their lives, the outcome of pollution can change greatly for the better. You can inform and motivate the

larger audience. It is not too late. (905)