Should the government bear sole responsibility for environmental problems?

In today’s fast-paced and industrialized world, it is hardly rare to see cars on congested roads.  Clouds of smoke emerging from factories, as well as the bustling airports with the aeroplanes rapidly transporting passengers and goods between far-off countries may seem common.  What is overlooked by the average man is the negative impact that our Mother Earth experiences due to our everyday actions. Many people will say that the government should be blamed for these problems, but I personally disagree with the people say. Indeed the government allows industrialization to take place, but they are trying their best to solve these environmental problems via policies and that the citizens’ refusal to change also caused the problems not to be alleviated. Therefore, I feel that the government should not bear the sole responsibility for the environmental problems as they are not the only one who caused these harms to the environment.

Looking at the issue from an individual’s point of view, one can see that the environmental issues are caused by the government as they are the one who are responsible for the country’s industrialization. This is mostly due to the rise of consumerism and capitalism. These two big ideas are adopted by most countries and this indirectly causes the environment to be affected. Yes, the government hopes that through industrialization, the economy would improve which would benefit everyone. However, this has led to the environment being harmed – global warming has caused the average temperature to rise and this harmed the biodiversity – even though the people have not felt the impact as yet. Thus commoners will feel that the government should bear sole responsibility for they are the primary culprits for industrialization and they have the power to change it. We cannot consider the issues of who should be bear the responsibility for the degradation of the environment without looking closely at the situation in China and India. For the past two years, China and India have being industrializing at a rapid rate and their environment has being deteriorating at a speedy rate. Considering the factor presented above, we can safely ascertain that the government should bear the responsibility for the environmental crisis we faced today.

However, it is important to note that environmental problems are not only caused by the government.  The commoners should also be responsible for the environmental problems we faced. Thus by looking at the issue from an environmentalist’s point of view, one can see that the environmental issues we faced are caused by every individual through our small yet significant act of harming our Mother Earth. This is because we do these harmful acts like wasting the papers without even realizing that these acts are harmful to the environment, taking everything we have for granted. Moreover, we have the mind-set that is literally telling us that “It’s okay to do harm the environment. It’s also not us who will suffer, so why bother?” This mind-set has caused us to be selfish in our thinking and thus it resulted in us not putting others before self.  Hence the environment is harmed due to our selfish motive. Who can ever forget the incident of the haze due to the burning of forest in Indonesia whereby the Singapore PSI reading hits the 226 in year 1997? Considering the evidence presented, we can safely ascertain that the people also play a part in causing harm to the environment.

Looking in the politician’s point of view, the government should not shoulder the responsibility of the environment problems as they have already done their part by implementing the policies that will help reduce the environmental problem we faced today. However, the effectiveness of the policies will depend on the cooperation rendered by its people. Hence the government should not be blamed for it as they have already tried their best in order to eradicate this issue or reduce the impact of the problems. Take for instance, the usage of our own plastic bags every Wednesday in order to reduce the usage of plastic bags that will harm our environment. These policies may seem ineffective as it is the people who do not comply with these measures taken.  Henceforth, after considering the factor that is being presented to us, we can safely say that the government should not be the one who should carry the sole responsibility of resolving the environmental issues.

In conclusion, I feel that the environmental problems should not be blamed on the government as each individual and the efforts that the government put in to resolve this problem cannot be debated. Yes, they caused these problems to arise due to their desire to industrialize, but this is just an unexpected outcome of their attempt to make their economy strong. Therefore, the government should not bear the sole responsibility for the environmental problems.

Ageing population is always to be feared?

Looking at the economist's point of view, one can see that ageing population should not be feared as the elderly can help to improve the economy of the country. The reason for this is that they can be valuable assets that can help improve the economy of a country. No doubt these elderly will nag at times, but we must still respect them because their invaluable experience in the area of specialization is way more experienced than the younger generation and their experiences can help guide the younger generation to improve. Through their guidance, the younger generation will become more capable to deal the problem if they faced with the similar situation. This will not only help the younger generation a lot but also help the country;s economy as the output that is possibly being produced increased, thus the elderly are more of an assets to the country than a burden to the country. Japan is an example of a country who did not attempt to include their elderly in the workforce and this causes the economy of Japan to be lagged behind the key economic superpowers like America and China. This shows that having an ageing population and able to make full use of their human resources will help the economy improved instead of causing them to be less economically inefficient, thus after considering the evidence placed forward, we can safely ascertain that ageing population should not be feared as it can helps improve our shrinking economy.