This is the story of a world on fire. Let me know if it sounds familiar. 1776, New York City, we’ve just won the Revolutionary War, and it’s time to discuss government. Looking back, I wonder if their intentions were good. What would they think if they could see the state of things? Total devastation is what I’d hope, but maybe not what I believe. Their hate wasn’t so different from ours; they killed and passed unjust bills and looked up to the White Man™, too. At least they didn’t have microplastics.

The earth is dying, and all I can do is watch. Total devastation. It’s a helplessness that comes with burden and guilt. I can recycle, use reusable cups, compost —whatever —but it isn’t enough. I have to accept that pollution isn’t my fault and that I can’t be the one to fix it. It’s a bit crushing, as a fixer, to surrender control. It feels like failure. But we, the taxpayers, didn’t fail the world; our lawmakers did, our CEOs did, our billionaires did. Since 1988, 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions have been caused by just 100 corporations. And only 25 are responsible for over half of the industrial emissions worldwide. Yet, we feel guilty as the working class for not always being able to afford organic and environmentally friendly alternatives. It feels as though nothing is safe to acquire or consume. There’s always a price, and I don’t make enough money for all that. I mentioned microplastics earlier, and, while some of the negative effects are immediately obvious, marine life, for example, which has always been a big cause in activism, there are undoubtedly many more harmful methods of infiltration. Airborne plastic dust and the chemicals it produces have been linked to various respiratory, reproductive, and nervous system problems. Similarly, the consumption of microplastics is linked to health issues and organ damage and can be even harder to avoid. Wildlife consumes plastics, and we consume the food. Up to 83% of drinking water contains microplastics, and has even been found in Antarctic snow. The long-term effects aren’t known yet, but as the particles have been able to survive water treatment and are produced in such high quantities, often to just end up in a landfill, I fear the health risk isn’t decreasing anytime soon.

Pollution doesn’t end there, of course; as the leading cause of global warming, there’s much more to it. Carbon emissions from forest fires and deforestation make up around 12% of global emissions, as of 2023, 95% of which takes place in tropical climates. In 2023, the U.S. was responsible for 14.3 tonnes of CO2 emissions, almost double the second-place offender, China, with 8.37. A big point of contention right now when it comes to the excessive use of fossil fuels is AI, specifically ChatGPT, and Cryptocurrency. The amount of the U.S.’ energy consumption AI has taken up recently is around 4-5%, a major increase from the 1-2% that data centers had previously used. The greenhouse gas emissions had slowly been declining since the mid-2000s, with the rise in clean energy, but the scale of solar and wind-powered energy that would be needed to keep up with the current output is simply not feasible. So what do we do? The obvious answer is to cut down on generative AI, which benefits not only the environment but also individuals affected by generative AI: Artists having their work stolen to train bots, service workers being replaced, deceptive marketing, and anyone who’s been subjected to a scroll through the Facebook home page. Crypto, like NFTs and the Blockchain, is another piece of this larger issue, with the amount of Ethereum and carbon used and emitted with every minted coin. Not only that, but the contribution to e-waste paves the way to more problems, like lead and mercury being released as blockchain mining through the use of CPUs and such, like Bitcoin, quickly come and go, are updated, and become obsolete.