These are 2 student responses that needs to be responded to. The response must be 100 words. Please use all references!

Brandons post

Choose an ethical issue that you believe requires immediate global action (slavery, hunger, etc.), and explain why you chose this topic. Please share three specific, practical ways the average citizen can contribute to a solution.

Is this an issue for which you might either sign a petition or create one? You can visit a site, such as change.org (Links to an external site.) or an alternate site, to locate a list of featured, popular or recent petitions. Share with the class a link to this petition.

The ethical issue I chose is actually the same one I mentioned in last week’s discussion, TeamTrees. This group was recently founded a couple months ago and is dedicated to planting twenty million trees. For every dollar donated they have pledged to plant one tree. Thanks to some YouTubers drawing attention to this they have passed three fourths of their goal and are very close to it. Discovery channel even did a small documentary on it. The planting of trees is to combat global warming and deforestation. Twenty million may sound like a big number, but according to National Geographic, about seventeen percent of the Amazon rain forest has been lost over the past fifty years. The deforestation to reforestation rate is offset and if we keep going at this rate we will get to a point of no return.

To help prevent this, everybody can help out in small ways. Reducing your use of paper products such as using a paper towel to wipe our hands. Instead, using a hand towel achieves the same goal without producing waste. Another way to help out is to donate even a dollar to the organization linked be, or really to any organization dedicated to deterring global warming. One other way you can help is to plant a tree yourself. I don’t mean to just plant an acorn and leave it, rather to actually plant it and care for it to ensure that it grows up and survives. If you don’t have the time to do this though then that exactly what TeamTrees is doing.

The reason I chose the subject of fighting global warming through the planting of trees is because it is an issue that affects everyone on Earth. I have been trying to reduce in general the number of things I use and especially the everyday throwaway products that most take for granted such as straws, napkins, and plastic bags. If everyone in the U.S. used one less napkin a day every day that would save over 300 million napkins, and that number would only grow every day. It’s hard to wrap our minds around just how much is wasted every day, but even the smallest effort can make a difference.

Chase Post

Its Easy to be Clean

An ethical issue that needs immediate action is pollution. From trash entering the ocean to throwing wrappers out a car window, severe pollution should be easy to stop. People everyday throw trash at their feet as they walk instead holding on to it until coming across a trash can. Maybe the repercussions are not severe enough, for example it is illegal in Singapore to even spit in the street and chewing gum is banned. A bigger contributing factor to pollution is dirty energy like fossil fuels. Wind farms are severely inefficient and hydroelectric can have lasting effects on the environment, but a clean alternative exists in nuclear power. Some terrible accidents have happened in the beginning of nuclear power but, with new regulations and safety measures it is harmless and foolproof. Also, once fusion instead of fission is viable, the only waste will be helium.

I believe the big reason that thoughtless pollution continues today is a lack of virtue ethics. If we had more self-control, high-mindedness, and an ability to feel shame as identified by Aristotle, (Neher & Sandin, 2007) then we would be more conscious of how we effect the environment. On the other hand, maybe we need to spread these virtues to the rest of the world since 86% of the trash entering the ocean is from Asia.

I personally try to help this issue by proper recycling, not littering and endorsing nuclear power. I do not have a petition, nor have I signed any to help this cause sadly. Many petitions exist for and against nuclear power. Here is a petition to include nuclear power in New York’s clean energy standard.