▶ Your Answer :
A large number of people might argue that individual people can solve environmental issues despite of its complexity. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that individuals cannot deal with environmental issues for following reasons: economic loss, and intense stress that derived from attempt to resolve them. To begin with, individuals' tries to recover environment hinder people from living happy life. This is due to the fact that money that originated from depleting natural resources tends to represent their power in society by showing their ability to attain whatever they want ranging from fancy cars to even trust in relationship. To explain, in modern society, economy developed by consuming natural assets such as woods and coal. The activities that utilize such materials certainly damage environment. Hence, it can be deemed that deeds to reconstruct environment by hampering such activities can negatively affect people in terms of finance. Therefore, individuals attempt to heal damaged environment will be avoided by majority of people. This is especially true given the fact that modern society runs on materialism. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea in 2010, there was a huge difference between two groups of employees in happy index. Employees in Group A owned a house and those in Group B rented a house. The researchers found that the level of happiness of Group A was much higher than that of Group B. Moreover, more than 60 percent of the workers in Group B underwent a severe depression. They constantly worry about paying rent in order to maintain a roof over their head. This indicates that money or economic benefit that came from anti-eco-friendly acts makes life easier and more comfortable. In addition, working on environmental issues in individual level arise stress to many people. This is attributed to the fact that such works can bring worries and stress to them. It is obvious that involving such activities can stress people out since most of modern society is closely related to factors that destroy environment. To be specific, general products that people use such as computers, fancy clothes, and microwave are the factors that harm environment. These products require natural resources such as soil and rare gem to be produced. Therefore, this complex projects to deal with environmental issues may actually serve as a stress arousal source. According to the Ministry of Education of Korea in 2010, there was a significant difference between two groups of students in managing their academic pressure. Students in Group A who rarely engaged in eco-friendly performances were more satisfied with their school lives than those in Group B who frequently joined to such activities. On the other hand, those in Group B were involved in dangerous activities such as smoking, drinking, and stealing to cope with their stress. This implies that the eco-friendly works can become a common pain for individuals. In brief, although many people urge that environmental issues can be alleviated by each person, such activities will be ignored by vast majority of people for the reasons that I have mentioned above. All in all, the importance of overlooking environmental problems cannot be underestimated for the sake of society. |