by Olivia Wang

People always says we need to protect the environment, But who really have to responsible for the enviroment? This time, Mr. Cheng from EQPF came to our school again. What he share with us this time is the “environment and politics”. In this essay we will talk about “The rights and interests in Taiwan”, “Why we have responsibility for the enviroment?”, “The problem we cause to the enviroment?”. Before you start to reading this essay, you should know “What is politics?” Mr. 孫中山, the founding father of Taiwan, believed that politics is matter of everyone, and the matter of everyone refers to a matter that affects many people.

Taiwan is a democratic country. In Taiwan, we have a referendum. Only adults over 18 years old are considered citizens and have the right to vote, the people that is under the 18 years old are classified as children and do not have the right to vote. The reason for the division is that people generally think that eighteen is the age at which people can think rationally and express them completely… But then a question arises, don't children have the rights to speak for themselves? What about the children who will be born in the future? What we do now is closely related to the appearance of the future world. We will affect their world and their resources, so whether they should have rights, and whether we have the responsibility to protect theirs.

Whether it is people now or people in the future, we all live in the same environment and on the same earth. I think allof us should take care of this environment, whether it is for ourselves or for the children and grandchildren in the future. It is not just for human beings. As a race in charge of the entire environment, human beings also have an obligation to protect the environment ofr other race living environment and quality, rather than making them pay for our actions. It is humans who use air-conditioning, but after the ice mountain melts, the race that has no place to live is the polar bear. It is humans who use plastic and invent plastic, but it is the creatures in the ocean that die because of plastic bags…, so I think that since people are the race that consumes the most on the earth, we should take the responsibility of taking care of the environment even more. The greatest advantage of mankind lies in the human brain, but this is also the greatest disadvantage of mankind. Human beings use this brain to achieve themselves, but they also use this brain to destroy themselves.

Back to Taiwan, most of the electricity in Taiwan now comes from coal-fired power generation, because this method of power generation is the lowest cost and most effective method, but at the same time it also produces the most pollution. When we are burning at the same time, a large amount of air pollution will be produced. “Therefore” the Taiwan government decided to establish a natural gas terminal to reduce environmental pollution, but in fact this also has a price. In addition to a large amount of money, the land on which the receiving stations is built is also damage to the environment. Due to the need to ensure the smooth transportation of natural gas, the receiving stations will be built near the coast. This will cause certain damage to the local area. This is also equivalent to culling the creatures living on that coast. So, I believed that the people should think clearly. We keep saying that we must protect the environment, but in order to protect the environment, we harm the environment and pay the piece of a coast. Is this worth it?

At the end, we just talk about “environment and politics”. In this essay we will talk about “The rights and interests in Taiwan”, “Why we have responsibility for the enviroment?”, “The problem we cause to the enviroment?”. In conclusion, the responsibility of environment is everyone's job. Because we all are the one that who live in this environment, so we all need to take care of this environment. Everybody can have different contribute, just like the spider man says “The greater ability, the greater responsibility”.

by Olivia Wang

這次，來自EQPF的鄭老師，再次來到了我們學校，這次他要與我們分享的是「環境與政治」。首先，「什麼是政治？」。台灣的國父孫中山先生認為，政治即眾人之事，所謂眾人之事就是指會影響到許多人的事。

台灣是一個民主的國家，在台灣我們有公民投票，十八歲以上的成年人才算公民並擁有投票權，而十八歲以下則被歸類為兒童，不具有投票權，而以十八歲作為分割的原因是，人們普遍認為十八歲是人們可以理性思考、完整表達的年齡……但是這樣就出現了一個問題，難道兒童就沒有為自己爭取的權益嗎？那麼未來將要出生的孩子們呢？我們現在的所作所為，都與未來世界的樣貌有著緊緊相扣的關連，我們將影響到他們的世界、他們的資源，這樣他們是否應該擁有權益，而我們又是否有責任去保障他們的權益呢？

不管是現在的人們，還是未來的人們，我們都生活在同一個環境、同一顆地球上，我認為我們不管是為了自己還是為了未來的子孫，我們都應該照顧好這片環境，更何況這其實不只是為了人類，人類身為掌管著整個環境的種族，我們也有義務去保障牠們的生活環境、品質，而不是讓他們為我們的行為付出代價。使用冷氣的是人類，可是造成冰層融化後，沒有地方可以居住的是北極熊，使用塑膠、發明塑膠的是人類，可是因為塑膠袋而死亡的是海洋中的生物……。所以我認為人們既然作為消耗地球最大的種族，我們就更應該負起照顧環境的責任。人類最大的優勢在於人類的腦袋，但這同時也是人類最大的壞處，人類運用這顆頭腦去成就了自己，卻也用這顆頭腦毀了自己。

說回台灣，現如今台灣的大部分電力都是來自於燃煤發電，因為這種發電方式是成本最低並且效果最好的方式，但同時它做產生出的污染也最多，當我們在燃燒的同時會製作出大量的空氣污染，「因此」台灣政府決定建立天然氣接收站，去達到減少環境污染的效果。但其實這也是要付出代價的，除了大量的金錢外，建造接收站的土地本身便一種對環境的傷害，由於需要確保天然氣的運輸順暢，接收站都會選擇建在海岸附近，這將對當地造成一定的傷害，而這也等同於我們撲殺了居住那片海岸的生物。所以，我認為蓋的人們應該思考清楚，我們口口聲聲說要保護環境，但卻為了保護環境而去傷害環境，去付出一片海岸的代價，這樣值得嗎？

最後的結論是，我認為保護環境是每一個人的責任，因為我們全都居住在這個環境當中，所以我們全都需要照顧這個環境，但是僅僅一個人的力量是沒辦法抵銷我們所製造出的汙染的，所以需要每個人都一起出一份力，但我覺得每個人都能夠有不同程度的貢獻，就像蜘蛛人所說的「能力越大，責任越大」。

Go back to Olivia Wang's essay page