It's 1952. You look over to the Cuyahoga River beside you and see flames dancing atop the water. You may ask how a river can catch on fire but the answer is simple... pollution. Pollution is very bad to the environment. You see, everybody in their life leaves a human footprint on the environment. I hope that you can learn how to make your footprint just a little better.

Most people leave a horrible footprint full of pollution behind them. Pollution is the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. This is caused by several different things. When cars are driven, they release harmful gasses and even more carbon dioxide into the Earth. Factories and anything using fossil fuels is harmful to the environment and the atmosphere. Believe it or not, even a cow burping releases harmful gasses and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. All of these examples and more are harmful on the environment and could lead to a disaster.

There is a lot pollution can do to the environment and to us. Pollution will harm our health when we breathe in dust, carbon dioxide and other gases such as methane caused by us. It will cause marine life to be destroyed wherever there is water pollution. It will also threaten our sources of water for most of them would be contaminated and polluted. Air pollution will result in global warming, where the Sun's heat is trapped in our atmosphere because of an excess of carbon dioxide, resulting in an increase in temperature. This will cause polar ice to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding cities and submerging little islands. The whole ecosystem would lay in ruin.

There are several solutions to stop the horrors described in the paragraph above. The first helps air pollution. It is as simple as not using your car so much. You can carpool with co-workers or ride the bus instead of going solo. Also, if your destination is very close, walk or ride a bike instead of driving. This helps because you won't be releasing harmful gasses into the environment. Another solution is even simpler. All you do is turn off the lights or TV when you aren't using it and stop the sink running when you aren't using it. Another thing that helps the environment is to not litter. All you have to do instead is throw whatever you have in a garbage bin or even better... recycle it. As you can see, there are many simple ways to help improve the environment and stop pollution.

In conclusion everybody leaves a human footprint on the environment. Most people leave footprints that harm the Earth but few leave a footprint to help. People leave a lot of pollution behind but that could seriously harm the environment. Luckily there are a lot of solutions to help stop the problem before it gets really bad. We all must follow these tips to help the world if we are ever to get out of this sticky situation pollution has given us.