In the Past

In the past, the greatest people in history were known for changing the world for the better. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and changed the history of the United States of America; the Wright brothers invented the first pilot-steered planes and changed the future of travel; Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and changed the history of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Today, why are the most revered people destroying our world? Donald Trump is seen as a leader who is “changing the course of history.” While the Republican president is changing the course of our world, it’s not in the way many believe. He has proposed a cut of over one billion US dollars to the National Parks Service. Theresa Pierno, the National Park Service’s president and CEO, has called Trump’s plans “...the most extreme, unrealistic and destructive National Park Service budget a President has ever proposed in the agency’s 109-year history,” and “...nothing less than an all-out assault on America’s national parks.” The Trump Administration also proposed a 77-million-dollar cut to the National Park Service’s recreation and preservation funding. Trump and his administration are fighting against preserving a wide variety of parks throughout the US, which may cause an unparalleled loss of wildlife areas. National parks were created as a way to protect what Mother Earth has given us, and Donald Trump is willing to throw them away. We need to stop worshipping Trump. We need to show him what it means to be a true American and to fight for the future of this nation’s vast array of outdoor beauty. 

In the past, the most hated people in history were those who caused unequaled carnage. Adolf Hitler killed over eleven million people in the Holocaust and became the most hated man of the 20th century; Jeffrey Dahmer murdered a suspected fifteen young men and became one of the most notorious serial killers of all time; Genghis Khan ordered the killing of around forty million people during his rule and became a despised dictator. 

Today, why are some of the most hated people doing us the most good? Greta Thunberg, a twenty-two-year-old environmentalist from Sweden, often receives hate from right-wing conservatives on social media and other platforms. Her critics typically aren’t able to attack the substance of her arguments, so they resort to personal attacks against her. We need to end this right-winged ignorance towards our planet. When a spirited young person attempts to help conservatives realize their mistakes, they refuse to acknowledge her arguments, instead resorting to low-blow personal attacks. 

We, as a people, need to rise to change this. We need to hate the ones destroying our planet, those ruining the futures of entire generations, just to enjoy their tainted luxuries. We need to applaud those rising against this and becoming a voice to help lead our world into a better tomorrow. 

We’re living on borrowed time. Mother Earth cannot sustain this kind of growth and waste for much longer. We need to help her bear this burden and secure a better tomorrow. Most importantly, we need to begin today.