World Around me Essay

I would like to consider the following two issues in The World Around Me and convey my perspective in each instance. Firstly the social justice issue that I have chosen is that of apathy for the needy and the environmental issue is that of extinction.

First of all is the issue of general apathy for the needy and poor. This is something that I see all around in the city and it is becoming more and more of a problem. I’m not saying that I’m perfect either, I’ve had my fair share of not giving any money to someone in more need than me. I guess it is also a pretty relateable because nearly everyone who has gone to any sort of area of wealth there are bound to be hundreds of homeless or poor people that are begging for money and so many people just walk by without batting an eye. It’s almost disgusting that there are lines at soup kitchens, that park benches are makeshift homes and that no-one cares. I assume that some people have adapted to the mindset that I used to have which was; “If they really wanted to not be poor then they could at least try, instead of just moping about and begging for money”. I have now learned that this is an extremely spoilt, naive thought because I have no idea what they have been through or what is going on in their life. I makes me sick to my mouth when people laugh at the homeless and complain that they are just soaking up their hard work in taxes.

The other thing that I think is a problem, is the environmental issue of extinction. Even with my vague knowledge of the subject I still know enough to see how much of an threat and problem this is. This reason I bring this up is because recently a movie reminded me of something. It was in a scene where a human was asking why an alien race had tried to kill all of the humans on earth to which the alien responds “Our planet was running out of space, we found your planet and you were taking up room that we needed”. The human than respond with “That’s not right you can’t just kill something because it is taking up space you want”, the alien then responds with “But humanity does it all the time”. This line cut deep and I still remember it to this day. I made me think about the way humanity has made extinction of species 1000-10000 more likely than normal. This is a scary fact because the numbers a so high, imagine 1000 to 100000 people were killed each year because another person wanted the land they owned, it just disgusting. I am not saying that I am not an offender either, I live in a house ,I go to school, I have a bed. All of these things need land to be cleared and with that several species go extinct.

In conclusion I believe that Apathy for the poor and needy and the rapid extinction of species due to human activity are two major issues that can not go unnoticed.