What is Earth? The third planet that orbits around the Sun? Yes! But not only that. Earth is the cradle of life, our planet, our habitat, our home, but we have stopped caring about it. We have caused the devastation of the only place in a cold, huge, and empty space that has been blessed with the seed of life. Our Earth is dying day by day and we are just sitting here with our arms crossed, doing nothing. Either because we are not interested in the damage that we have caused or we fear that no one will hear the call of help for our planet. The change starts in each of us. Taking little actions on things that harm our planet: as the use of straws, littering or even the use of cars, will help our planet live longer and it will provide a better place for new generations.

Straws, those little tubes that we use to drink juices, sodas and even water form a water bottle. Are they even useful?! Many people reading this will think they are and probably are drinking their soda using one now. Straws are like bullets, they kill seabirds. Every year around 1 million seabirds die because of the consumption of plastic straws. “Plastic trash is found in 90 percent of seabirds. The rate is growing steadily as global production of plastics increases.”(Parker, 2015). Now you tell me; is it worth to use a plastic straw that you will only use one time and then it would end in the stomach of a pure animal that confuses it for food? Did you know that 500 million straws are used every single day only in the U.S. and that we are contributing to this number? Doesn't it make you feel guilty?! There are many different actions that we can make to stop this number from increasing. Of curse the best alternative is to stop using straws at all other solutions would be; using paper straws, steel straws, bamboo straws, straw straws, and glass straws. With so many options, I can assure you that you will find the perfect one for you.

Litter is a problem that the whole world is facing nowadays. People everywhere have at least littered one time in their life, including me. This litter will eventually end in the oceans causing a huge deterioration in the marine ecosystem. According to Laura Parker, a staff writer of National Geography who specializes in covering climate change and marine environments, “There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Of that mass, 269,000 tons float on the surface, while some four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep sea.” It is an unbelievable number, still increasing by a rate of 18 million pounds of plastic waste entering the ocean every day. How hard can it be to change our mentality that trash does not go on the ground, but in trash cans? This problem involves all of us, that is why we should stop throwing our waste on the ground. As with the straws littering has solutions, too. Have you ever thought of carrying a litter bag with you, recycling your trash, or picking others’ trash and set an example? There are so many ways that we can stop littering. It would just take will and a few seconds of your precious time to make the world a better place.

Cars, they are very efficient to move around. Have you ever thought about the amount of CO2 that a car emits in one year? Well, it is around 6 pound of CO2 every year from a single car. You may be thinking who cares if it takes me to my job or school in time it is reasonable. But no! Five young trees can store 13 pounds of CO2 per year. This sounds fine to some of us but just imagine the number of cars that are out there and that trees are being cut for other purposes, leaving us with not enough trees to clean the CO2 of the air. We need to do something before it's too late. If we are smart enough to make cars that take us everywhere, we also have that capacity to understand that it is contaminating the air we need to live. There are a lot of solutions to this problem. Starting with small steps we can try to use bicycles, public transport or even walk. This option will reduce the amount of CO2 that is produced every day. One more solution is to the future drivers, the people that are planning to buy a new car you should consider it to be an electric one.

In conclusion, we are the ones who have to address these problems of straws, littering and air pollution. The future of our planet is in our hands and if we start caring about our actions today, it will change our future. A future where the oceans are clean, the air is clean and we will live in harmony with the animals. So, it is time to change!