Redesigning Our Future

By Serena Musselwhite The amount of energy, the amount and type of each energy, and what the energies are used  for vary widely worldwide (Smith, p.180). For example, even though highly industrialized countries use most of the world's energy while less industrialized countries use much less, countries with the same level of development vary in the amount of energy they use and how they use those energies. There are three types of energy use, residential and commercial, industrial, and transportation energy use. Industrialized nations use the three energies fairly equally while less developed nations focus more on residential energy. Developing nations use much of their energy to develop their industrial base. Energy consumption and industrialization are strongly interrelated (Smith, p.180). According to Enger Smith, "From a historical point of view, it is possible to plot changes in energy consumption. Economics, politics, public attitudes, and many other factors ...

Recycling bins are in our homes, schools and all over the world; our minds are trained to recycle every substance that is possibly recyclable. We often point to recycling as a superhero- like throwing away our plastics bottles are slapping pollution in the face! One by one we are cleaning up the environment by making small lifestyle changes like using reusable water bottles, but some of our changes are actually hurting the environment around us. Five negative effects from recycling are: 1) Contamination is a huge problem in the recycling industry. For example, when lead paint from an aluminum spray can makes it through the recycling process, it usually ends up being buried in the new product- usually a soda can. Contamination causes a huge problem when hundreds of buildings in Taiwan , made from recycled steel, were giving people gamma radiation poisoning for twelve years starting in 2000. 2) Air pollution will always be an issue in our world. The proc...