World We Imagine part 1

When thinking about making the world a better place, thoughts of ending world hunger, disease, and poverty often race through my mind. These are all obviously worthwhile endeavors, but these will all be completely pointless if we can’t save our environment from ourselves. Humans have fought amongst themselves for seemingly as long as we have existed. Although taking sides seems to be a natural trait, one side that we all need to be on is the fight against global warming and the degradation of the environment. In the real world, taking action against these issues starts with our own lives. Taking steps in your own life to reduce waste might seem pointless if you think about the billions of people on this planet, but the results could be amazing if we all worked together. Uniting people and organizations against the corporate abuses of our environment to create real change seems to be an extremely rewarding (albeit frustrating) path to take.  

Some initial steps in my own life to start on this environmental path would be to educate myself on the plethora of issues we face and how we can address them. Investing in an electric car rather than my current gas-powered vehicle also seems like a solid starting point. There are so many things we could do in our personal lives from taking shorter showers to recycling, but the biggest problems seem to be the companies and corporations of the world that prioritize profits over the environment. As a business major about to begin my career, I completely understand a company’s responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits, but pursuing profits at the expense of the environment is unbelievably shortsighted and irresponsible. Luckily, it’s been reassuring to see many large corporations recently making conservation and sustainability a huge part of their corporate mission. 

 

Perhaps I could be of the most utility orchestrating change from within. It would be an incredibly fulfilling job to develop and execute programs for companies and organizations to give back and improve the world and the environment. Another interesting path could be lobbying and/or putting financial backing behind the legislature that holds companies and countries more accountable. I’m starting my career in sales, so it would be a logical transition to eventually move into a sales role on behalf of the environment. When thinking about improving the world, most ideas and goals are so massive and abstract that they become hard to quantify and act upon. An upside to fighting for the environment is that there are clearly quantifiable benefits and impacts to strive for. As my fellow college students and I begin graduating and working to achieve financial freedom for ourselves and our families, it’s essential that we all realize that perhaps the greatest gift we can give our future generations is the preservation of nature and the environment.