During spring break, I had a talk about the environment with a friend of mine from high school. My friend is going to college and pretty smart, but our discussion was frustrating. He felt that there was no need to be concerned about the environment because the impact people were having was small and easily managed by reducing pollution. He also believes things  global warming is simply a result of the ending of the previous ice age, meaning people are not having an impact. 

Trying to talk to him about the environment was hard as it seemed like we were living on two different planets. He lived on a planet with few environmental issues that was simply exhibiting cyclical weather changes. I was living on a planet were people are having a detrimental impact that was starting to wreck the planet. Granted, I have gotten used to conversations like this with him as there is almost nothing we agree on so we just talked, respecting each others view points. 

I couldn't help but think that this must be part of the reason why the people do not do more to lessen the impact of people on the environment. Not everyone seems to think that we are having an impact; though, my friend holds this view, in part I feel, because he likes to drive his huge SUV and blast his AC all year round. People can live considerable more comfortable lives if they ignore the impact their actions have on the environment as most of the costs are not felt by the person enjoying their life, but by people far away. This is not to say that people trying to lessen their impact on the planet need to live like hermits or pretend electricity was never discovered; you simply need to pay a little bit more attention to what you do and how you live.