Essay, Research Paper: Pollution

Pollution. What is pollution? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary pollution is “the action of polluting esp. by environmental contamination with man-made waste.” The United States runs on power. Much of the United States’ powers come from various nuclear power plants all across the country. Some power plants are getting old and are not up to date. These power plants are emitting various gasses and chemicals into the air. Transcendentalists believe that people should coexist with nature. They believe that nature is an entity of equal importance to us, and not just our supply of resources. The problem is that the gasses and other pollutants released are harming our environment. There are many solutions to this problem. Some solutions that might have been made by the transcendentalists would be to shut down nuclear power plants completely. Another solution would be to update the current problems or find better power sources.
The first solution a transcendentalist would have would be to totally abolish the use of nuclear power plants. This idea is pretty basic in its nature. If all the nuclear power plants in America were shut down, there would be less cases of pollution. Though it may not seem it, the best way to deal with pollution, is with “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity,” as Thoreau says in “Walden.” By merely closing all the nuclear power plants in the United States there is no chance for pollution to spread. This idea is the perfect transcendental idea. If people went away from technology and escaped back to reality they would find that problems could be solved very easily. Many transcendentalists believed in “simplicity” and the carefree life. Some transcendentalists believed in nature as our future and our offspring.
Another possible transcendental solution would be to update current situation. Some transcendentalists would believe in modernizing and renovating the existing power plants so that they would be more efficient and nature friendly. Nature needs to be taken care of and so instead of totally disposing of nuclear power plants, they could be made to friendly to Mother Earth. As Emerson says in “The Over-Soul”, “the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature...” Nature is essential to the survival of the human race. Why should society kill something that it requires? Humankind ought to learn that by killing nature it is only killing itself. Nuclear power plants should be renewed rather than destructed.
Briefly, the transcendentalists would have had many solutions for the problem of nuclear pollution to the environment. Two of these solutions would have been to close the power plants or revise the current power plants to make them more energy and nature conservative. These two solutions would work best with the problem.


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