Who is Most at Fault for Climate Change?

              Today, most people can agree that our climate is changing as a result of human activity. This is supported by a myriad of evidence, from atmospheric carbon dating of CO2 emissions in ice cores, to the average ocean and surface temperatures rising sharply in the past decade, to arctic sea ice declining rapidly over the last several decades. There should no longer be a shadow of a doubt in anyone’s mind that the climate is warming, and it is our fault. It is not a hoax, it is not a myth, it is reality. However, there are still some people out there that continue to deny that this climate emergency is due to humans, and even that it exists in the first place. But once we establish the truthful precedent of climate change, the next major question, that currently causes much disagreement, is who or what to blame. If we can correctly identify the largest contributors to climate change, we can be better equipped to hold them accountable and begin the process of healing our planet. Before I delve into the topic of who’s to blame the most, and how to save our planet before it becomes inhabitable for all of us, I would like to go over the evidence.

              Firstly, we need to look at the numbers. Many different scientists and professionals can agree unanimously that there are major changes in the climate and that it is anthropogenic (as a result of human activity). There are entire professions dedicated to surveying the environment, like Ecologists, Environmental Scientists, Geographers, Marine Biologists, and many more. The way they gather and analyze their data can come from a multitude of different measurement devices, like weather equipment (anemometers, pyranometers, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, hygrometers) Satellites that capture information about melting glaciers, radars that survey cloud and wind speed, thermometers for ocean, surface, and atmosphere temperatures, and many more (NOAA). The evidence gathered with these methods by these professionals that dedicate their entire lives to understanding our environment shows an increase in global temperature by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit ( around 1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19^th century (which was the beginning of the industrial revolution, this will be important for later) and this increased heat is mostly absorbed by our oceans, with the top 328 feet (100 meters) of ocean showing an increase of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 Celsius) since 1969 (NASA). Now this may not seem like a lot, but even a small change in those metrics can have a big impact. A study done on green sea turtles shows that a sand temperature of 31.1 degrees Celsius and above, only female sea turtles hatch, and at 27.8 degrees Celsius and below, only males hatch. Not only can a difference in temperature create small changes like this, but higher temperature thresholds can impact much larger percentages of life on Earth, with significant increases in overall planet temperature, more intense storms, and even the extinction of entire species (Buis).

 But is all this evidence really a result of human activity? The answer is yes. One thing to remember is that we don’t have as comprehensive data for the climate before the 20^th century as we do now for the 21^st century, because before the advent of many modern environmental measuring instruments, we really had no way to survey climate data like we do now. So, a great way to see what the climate was like before humans came along is ice core analysis. By extracting ice cores deep inside glaciers from polar regions, it can offer valuable insight into what the climate fluctuations of the past were like, supported by evidence. This evidence is analyzed by harvesting this untouched ice and testing it to determine the atmospheric temperature of the millennium, which is done by comparing the ratio of heavy oxygen in the ice water (oxygen isotope with more neutrons which makes it condense more quickly) to light oxygen (oxygen with less neutrons which makes it evaporate more quickly). By comparing this ratio within the glacier ice, scientists can determine what the overall temperature of the planet was in that era. Which brings us to the point at hand – ice cores harvested relative to the century we are currently living in show a sharp increase of both temperature, and carbon dioxide. Ice cores from millions of years ago had much lower carbon dioxide than the more recent cores do today (Scott). By utilizing this form of study, called Paleoclimatology, we can determine that the sharp rise in temperature and carbon dioxide happened directly after the industrial revolution, which means that the changing climate is a result of us humans.

So, we’ve established that all the evidence points to climate change being real, and we’ve established that it’s a result of modern human industry. But what now? How can we stop this massive human-manufactured threat to our climate, which has remained relatively stable for billions of years before humans modernized? This is where a lot of people argue for and against different solutions. These arguments seem to fall into two categories. One side insists that protecting the climate falls onto the individual, and the other side asserts that it falls more on the collective. I, for one, can see the appeal of both of these arguments. But before I take a position, I think it’s important to identify who contributes most to climate change. The main cause of the global increase in temperature is greenhouse gases. These are atmospheric gases that increase the “greenhouse effect” or the convection of heat from the sun that circulates through our planet’s thick atmospheric layers. Gases such as carbon dioxide and methane occur naturally in our atmosphere but are greatly increased by industrial processes such as fossil fuel burning, transportation, deforestation, and farming processes. Nitrous oxide is another potent greenhouse gas that can be found in nature, but in recent years is mostly released by commercial and organic fertilizer production, fossil fuels, and burning vegetation. Chlorofluorocarbons are created solely from industrial creation and are potent chemical compounds found in refrigerants, solvents, and spray can propellants. All 4 greenhouse gases substantially contribute to climate change. Other contributing factors, while not as massive in scale, but still certainly important, are deforestation, fertilizers containing nitrogen, car-centered infrastructure, and livestock farming.

All of this evidence brings me to the realization that the only way to truly solve climate change is to restructure our entire society, starting from the collective whole, and making our way down to the individual. So, who is currently most responsible for climate change? It is a combination of oil/gas/electricity corporations, transportation, and industry that are most at fault. These economic sectors are the parts of our society that contribute the most to pollution. In a study using emissions data collected by the Environmental Protections Agency (EPA) in 2024, based on data compiled from 2022, the greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors studied (7 in total, including agriculture, commercial, residential, and data from U.S. territories) contributed a gross total of 6,343.21 MMT (million metric tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalents. If we were to break that data down, transportation would be 28.4% of that, the electric power industry is 24.9% of that, and the general industry is 22.9% of said emissions. We need to implement heavy regulations on these sectors to completely reduce their emissions. Now, I understand that the commerce of these industries is very important for modern society, but these industries need to have an interest in selling products sourced and created sustainably, and if they can’t do that, they shouldn’t exist.

Take transportation, for example. The United States of America is one of the most car-centered countries in the entire world. This industry contributes the most to greenhouse gas emissions out of all the other sectors. A huge chunk of our country’s emissions come from cars. Approximately 70% of all American workers travelled to work alone in a car in 2024. The mean travel time for American workers who did not work from home was 27.2 minutes, to and from, their place of work (U.S Census Bureau). If we structured our cities and towns to be more walkable, we could have more modes of public transportation (buses, trains/subways, bicycles, trams, ferries, etc.). This involves building roads that have more lanes that don’t involve single or passenger cars, like bicycle lanes, bus lanes, or tram rail lanes. Not only that, but American cities and towns are famously very spread out. The suburban sprawl was built after WW2 to accommodate large nuclear families with multiple children and a car (or two) to drive the children to and from school, the husband to work, and the wife to the grocery store. Due to zoning regulations, cars take precedent to people in suburbs. Many families even need multiple cars, one for each person, for them to do their daily activities. Rural communities are even more car-dependent, with more space and larger separations between towns and houses. And this is all connected by thousands of highway routes, that many people drive 60+ minutes a day. If we made our towns and cities closer, with more sidewalks, bike lanes, and public transportation, we would be able to break free from car dependency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions tenfold.

Works Cited:

Buis, Alan, “A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter” Nasa.com, Jun. 19, 2019, https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/vital-signs/a-degree-of-concern-why-global-temperatures-matter/ (Accessed December 9^th, 2025)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) “Evidence” NASA.com, Oct. 23, 2024, https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/  (Accessed December 8^th, 2025)

National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “Climate Data Monitoring” NOAA.com, Sept. 30, 2025, https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-data-monitoring (Accessed December 9th, 2025)

Scott, Michon, “What do Ice Cores Reveal About the Past” NSIDC.org, March 24, 2023, https://nsidc.org/learn/ask-scientist/core-climate-history (Accessed December 9th, 2025)

The U.S. Census Bureau, “United States Commuting at a Glance: American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates” Census.gov, Sept. 22, 2025, https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/acs-1yr.html (Accessed December 9th, 2025)

For my Essay for argument, I would like to dive into the unfortunately controversial topic of climate change, formerly called global warming. First, I will highlight the arguments on both sides, and the possible context and history for each argument. Next, I will go into depth about what climate change really is using a myriad of sources (see some below), who are the current top contributors to climate change, and debunk some of the myths. Then, I will take the “climate change is real” side of the argument, and expose some of the lies of the anti-climate change side. This will lead me to go into depth about the misinformation campaigns surrounding climate change, and the history of corporate backing of anti-climate change talking points. Finally, I will end this solemn topic on a positive note about what has already been accomplished, and what else can be done while the time is ticking for our planet

My research question: Is Climate Change real? And what can we do to stop it?

Some links to high quality sources I might consider using:

The 1978 Love Canal Incident

            It’s 1970. You’ve just moved into a brand-new house in a lovely community in Niagara Falls, New York. Things are going great, you have one child 2 years of age, and another on the way. There’s a creek, a playground, and even a school within walking distance of your home. It’s truly the American Dream. But all dreams end eventually. After living in the house for 8 years, your son, now age 10, has seemingly developed a seizure disorder, and it gets worse in school. Your daughter, age 8, suffers from a handful of autoimmune disorders. When they come home from playing outside, they have strange burns on their hands and knees. Your basement leaks thick, black substances, and the vegetable garden you’ve been trying to grow for years withers away before a single fruit is produced. Every once in a while, especially after it rains, the air is filled with the smell of burning rubber and noxious chemicals. You talk with your neighbors to find out they too have had experiences like yours. Some mothers had miscarriages, some had children born with developmental deformities. All of them came across the noxious black muck at some point. This was the reality for hundreds of families living in the neighborhood of Love Canal, in the southeast section of La Salle, from the 1950s to 70s. Now, the area is a ghost town. A few abandoned homes remain, with most being demolished. The canal itself has been topped with clay and is consistently monitored for leachate. The toxic chemicals remain buried deep in the ground, becoming one with the soil. Looking back on this incident almost 50 years later, it’s clear that this environmental atrocity should never have happened.

            But why did it happen in the first place? You see, it all started in the 1890’s with a railroad entrepreneur named William T. Love. He had developed a daring plan to capitalize on the quickly growing US population, and the vast resources of the Niagara Falls area. Drunk on his ambition and the money earned from his railroad success, he developed a proposal to create what he called, a “model city” which would be innovatively named Model City. Love envisioned his city to have perfect streets, perfect schools, perfect factories, and perfect sanitation. He even included a clause to appease the temperance movement supporters, stating: “In their deeds, landowners had to swear they would never sell alcohol”. All this was to be fueled by a power plant utilizing an approximately 12-mile canal connecting the upper part of the Niagara river to the lower part, traversing around the Niagara Falls themselves. In 1894, the excavation of the canal started, but after a particularly bad period of financial instability, investors backed out of Love’s plan in 1897. Not only that, but Nikola Tesla developed hydroelectricity in 1895, creating a way to develop power using the famous falls directly, and rendering Love’s plan useless. Not even 1 mile of the projected 12-mile canal had been dug. Shortly after that, William T. Love went bankrupt and left Niagara for good, hoping for better luck in the Alaskan gold rush. Left behind by Love’s legacy, was an abandoned canal that was flooded with the water from Niagara River. For 50 years, people fished and swam in the canal, that was until Hooker Chemical came along.

            In 1942, the electrochemical company named Hooker, founded in 1903, bought the canal and subsequently used it as a dumping ground for 21,800 tons of chemical waste byproducts left over from the industrial processing of various bleaches, caustic sodas, pesticides, acids, and solvents. Among these substances were highly toxic chemicals such as benzene and dioxin, both known human carcinogens. These chemicals were stored in 55-gallon (210 L) metal drums and haphazardly thrown into the canal for 10 years. In 1952, the town was looking for new land to develop, and top executives at Hooker saw a great opportunity. A letter written by Vice President Bjarne Klaussen to the company president R.L. Murray, Klaussen states: “the Love Canal property is rapidly becoming a liability because of housing projects in the near vicinity of our property– We became convinced that it would be a wise move to turn this property over to the schools provided we could not be held responsible for future claims or damages resulting from underground storage of chemicals.” On April 28^th of 1953, the 16-acre landfill was capped with clay, and a deed was signed with the board of education of the city of Niagara Falls. This deed sold the land for a grand total of $1 and conveniently included a clause at the very end of the deed, meant to absolve the company from any liability. The clause stated: “the grantee herein has been advised by the grantor that the premises above described have been filled in whole or in part, to the present grade level thereof with waste products resulting from the manufacture of chemicals by the grantor at it’s plant in the City of Niagara Falls, New York, and the grantee assumes all risk and liability incident to the use thereof.” This package deal of new, cheap land in an accessible area of the town was too good of an offer to pass up for the Niagara Falls board of education. So, the land was purchased, and Hooker wiped their hands clean of the canal, which they had transformed into a contaminated ticking time bomb.

            After that fateful decision, the development firms moved in and started their goal of transforming this seemingly barren grassland into an ordinary run-of-the-mill neighborhood. As more houses were built, more families moved in. The houses built in Love Canal were cheaper than the average homes in the area at the time, attracting many working-class families. According to a former resident Debbie Cerrillo Curry, who lived in Love Canal at the time of the incident, “Love Canal was government subsidized. My husband wasn’t making very much money, and they made that a very tasty little deal to move into.” People gradually began transforming this neighborhood into a community. They played with their children at the local playground, held parties, and lived the closest anyone could ever get to the American dream. Nobody knew about the festering mass of chemicals below them. There had always been subtle signs in the community, like weird smells in the air and pets dying early and severely. But the blizzard of 1977 gave the community a major wake up call. There had been four times the normal average of snow. When it all melted, the water table had risen unlike it ever had before, and along with it came the chemicals. Collapsing drums, subject to decades of decomposition, invaded families’ backyards, and basements started to leach smelly sludge. As the drums disintegrated, holes emerged in the ground, filled with noxious black substances. More and more families started to notice these changes. But a tipping point was reached once it started to affect their children.

             Health problems were everywhere in Love Canal. Community activist and mother of two, Lois Gibbs, was living in Love Canal at the time. Her son Micheal had developed a very serious and sudden seizure disorder which seemed to get worse when he was in school. As a concerned mother, with no family history of seizure disorders, she began researching. She came upon a newspaper article talking about a landfill that used to exist in the canal, which raised even more questions. Slowly, the residents of Love Canal were waking up to what was unfolding. They tried to contact their representatives, but many didn’t listen, nor did they see it as a valid concern. Eventually, after talking to other neighbors who had also experienced similar effects, she decided to take matters into her own hands. With the help of a dedicated volunteer scientist, they began to interview families. The findings were terrifying. More than 75% of homes outside of the fenced in evacuated area were surveyed, and of that group, there was a 25.2% miscarriage rate, a 56% birth defect rate, and families living on old wet areas, otherwise known as “swales” were at a 6.3% higher rate of developing complications. The complications included still births, deformities, nervous breakdowns, hyperactivity, epilepsy, and urinary tract disorders, among many more complications found in the children of Love Canal. Many children had a combination of said complications. When the observed miscarriages were compared to the number of miscarriages families faced before moving to Love Canal, they were found to have increased by 300%.

            After a long and strenuous battle between the people of Love Canal and the state government, and eventually the federal government, most families were evacuated by 1980. The government bought their homes and moved them to safer areas away from the canal. Many chose to permanently leave the city, and even the state. Hundreds of families have had to live with the effects brought onto them by unknowingly living on top of a hazardous chemical landfill. All because of regulations of landfill safety and proper storage of hazardous wastes were not yet set in stone, hundreds of years before we as a society developed the education to properly manage these harsh chemical wastes. If we are to take anything away from the incident that happened at Love Canal almost 50 years ago, its that every regulation is written in blood.

Works Cited

Russell, Hope L. “Model City (Pre-WW2)” Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, September6^th, 2024, https://www.discoverniagara.org/newpage425917c8 (accessed Nov. 19, 2025)

Tomlinson, Sharon. “File: Hooker Electrochemical Quit Claim Deed to Board of Education.pdf” Wikimedia Commons Digitized PDF, March 16, 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hooker_Electrochemical_Quit_Claim_Deed_to_Board_of_Education.pdf (accessed Nov. 19, 2025)

Beck, Eckardt C. “The Love Canal Tragedy” The US Environmental Protection Agency, January 1979, https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy.html (accessed Nov. 20, 2025)

Glaberson, William. “Love Canal: Suit Focuses On Records From 1940’s”. The New York Times. October 22, 1990,Archived from the original on 2017-02-27. Retrieved 2017-02-27.

American Experience, “Poisoned Ground, the Tragedy at Love Canal” PBS. April 22, 2024, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poisoned-ground-tragedy-love-canal/

Center for Health, Environment, & Justice, “Love Canal FactPack” August 2015, pgs. 7-11, https://chej.org/wp-content/uploads/Love-Canal-Factpack-PUB-0012.pdf

Pictures I am considering:

Possible questions:

1. How did the community come together to fight for relocation when the government wasn’t doing enough to help their families? What major part did Lois Gibbs play in this movement?
2. Why did the chemical company Hooker decide to sell the land to the city knowing full well what they had buried there years before? Why did they decide to sell it for only $1?
3. Why did the town decide to buy the land from Hooker chemical knowing the deed included a clause where the school board waived responsibility for any future injuries caused by the buried chemicals, releasing Hooker from any liability? Is this legal loophole fair?
4. How did the underground toxic waste affect the families living on it? How did it affect the plants and animals?
5. Why do you think the city never moved the chemicals to a safer and more secure facility, choosing to keep the toxic waste buried there until this day? How could this affect the residents living in Niagara, NY to this day?
6. What impact do you think this environmental tragedy had on our culture? What good has the EPA done so far?
7. Is the EPA still as efficient today as it was in the 70’s?
8. What kind of legal reform can be implemented to fix issues like this from now on?

              “To wander in the 21^st century, unfortunately, is to court death.” – Ben Goldfarb, paragraph 2

This powerful statement comes from the article, written in the Atlantic on November 26, 2019, titled “How Roadkill Became an Environmental Disaster” by Ben Goldfarb. It focuses on a threatened species; Myrmecophaga tridactyla, otherwise known as the giant anteater, and the struggle they face with sharing their natural environment with the behemoth that is the BR-262 highway in southern Brazil. Anteaters are a species endemic to South America, and their range spans across several countries, starting at southern Brazil all the way to Colombia, and even crossing Panama into North America, ending in Honduras and El Salvador. The text discusses the trials and tribulations these large mammals must navigate in their day-to-day lives, with the highway being a large source of fatalities for their already waning population. We follow Goldberg on his journey through southern Brazil and his studies on anteaters and road ecology. He eventually meets Mario Alves, a Brazilian wildlife veteran, and the two go on a wildlife research initiative, tallying the casualties of the asphalt highway behemoth, BR-262. The next day, they start their mission to catch the elusive collared anteater named Evelyn. They eventually catch her by net, tranquilize her, analyze her biometrics and examine the information stored in her collar. The article ends by emphasizing the moral conundrum between human civilization advancing, and the harm many of those advancements end up doing to the environment. But the article doesn’t just cover giant anteaters, it describes every species of animal in the region that has perished at the hands of human development. From capybaras, caimans, hawks and even armadillos, no animal is safe from the constant threat of death that has recently situated itself in their environment.

This is a topic I unfortunately have some personal experience in, and most likely many others, as well. Ever since I started learning how to drive in 2018, I have accidentally hit 2 deer, a couple squirrels, and even a chipmunk at one point, and I’ve only been driving for about 7 years. Avoiding these scared and frantic creatures is an impossible task, depending on what position they’re in relative to my car when they try to cross the road. However, I do remember some last-ditch efforts I’ve made to swerve around them and successfully spare their lives. Ben Goldfarb cites some depressing statistics in his article; roads have become the number one “leading direct human cause of vertebrate mortality on land” surpassing hunting by a large margin. According to Goldfarb, “the most cited estimate pegs America’s roadkill toll at 1 million critters a day”. Not only that, but in Brazil, a citizen-science roadkill app called “Sistema Urubu”, invented by Alex Bager, has estimated that more than 400 million Brazilian animals are struck down by cars annually. This article really made me think about my contribution to the statistics of animal deaths in a more profound and philosophical way. I may have only hit a small handful of different animals, but when everyone has had experiences like I have, that handful turns into an entire population. I can’t think about it too hard though, because, just like Brazilian wildlife veterinarian Mario Alves is quoted saying:

“I’m sad about the situation,” Alves said. “Not about each animal that I see. Or I would be”—he glanced skyward, casting for an English phrase—“under depression.” – Mario Alves, paragraph 7

Along with countries that already have highways, certain countries that don’t have modern roads have started developing them at an incredible rate, and the species in the area aren’t doing well to adapt to these new changes in their habitat. Goldfarb poses the question of the century: “Having profited wildly from a century of infrastructural growth, can the developed world deny other countries the benefits of connectivity?”. While I agree with Goldfarb pointing this out, I believe the issue is more complicated than that. It’s not that developing countries are having a worse effect on their local ecosystems than developed countries, it’s just that they’re now catching up to the mortality rates that developed countries have had for quite some time. Either way, the introduction of roads and highways creates a pressing issue for the animals that must cross them to get to their homes. But the article emphasizes one very important fact contributing to the roadkill epidemic: fragmentation. Fragmentation is the phenomenon in which long roads and highways can break up a species natural habitat, by creating man-made boarders those animals dare not interact with. An animal is smart enough to recognize that those large, flat strips of rock can sometimes host bright, fast-moving metal objects on wheels, and those wheels can be deadly. And with time the animal learns that the safest move is to just stay on one side of the road. Thus, fragmenting their habitats.

              Researching this issue has opened my eyes to the unfortunate truth of our modern society, and even made me think about the human condition, and how we humans seldom care about the issues we create for other organisms. There are only two ways to solve animal mortality rates at the hands of cars: create new technology that improves transportation in a way that doesn’t endanger animals, or settle for the transportation we have now and just try to work within the boundaries of our car centered infrastructure to keep as many animals safe as we can. The more I learn about this subject, the more I come to the realization that modern human society has an almost completely negative effect on our environment. However, there is always a positive side. With new advances in technology, come new issues, and new ways to solve such issues. Human ingenuity will always invent ways to solve the issues we create. Many people don’t care about the issues that face other organisms, but there are just as many who do. The best thing we can do is care.

Works Cited:

Goldfarb, Ben. “How Roadkill Became an Environmental Disaster”: The Atlantic,  26 Nov. 2019, { https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/11/roads-brazil-giant-anteaters/602587/ } Accessed 0ctober 22, 2025

Kobilinsky, Dana. “Fences Best at Reducing Roadkill”: The Wildlife Society, 1 May. 2017, { https://wildlife.org/fences-best-at-reducing-roadkill/ } Accessed October 22, 2025

              “To wander in the 21^st century, unfortunately, is to court death.” – Ben Goldfarb, paragraph 2

This powerful statement comes from the article, written in the Atlantic on November 26, 2019, titled “How Roadkill Became an Environmental Disaster” by Ben Goldfarb. The article focuses on a threatened species; Myrmecophaga tridactyla, otherwise known as the giant anteater, and the struggle they face with sharing their natural environment with the behemoth that is the BR-262 highway in southern Brazil. Anteaters are a species endemic to South America, and their range spans across several countries, starting at southern Brazil all the way to Colombia, and even crossing Panama into North America, ending in Honduras and El Salvador. The article discusses the trails and tribulations these large mammals must navigate in their day-to-day lives, with the highway being a large source of fatalities for their already waning population. But the article doesn’t just cover giant anteaters, it describes every species of animal in the region that has perished at the hands of human development. From capybaras, caimans, hawks and even armadillos, no animal is safe from the constant threat of death that has recently situated itself in their environment.

This is a topic I unfortunately have some personal experience in, and most likely many others, as well. Ever since I started learning how to drive in 2018, I have accidentally hit 2 deer, a couple squirrels, and even a chipmunk at one point, and I’ve only been driving for about 7 years. Avoiding these scared and frantic creatures is an impossible task, depending on what position they’re in relative to my car when they try to cross the road. However, I do remember some last-ditch efforts I’ve made to swerve around them and successfully spare their lives. Ben Goldfarb cites some depressing statistics in his article; roads have become the number one “leading direct human cause of vertebrate mortality on land” surpassing hunting by a large margin. According to Goldfarb, “the most cited estimate pegs America’s roadkill toll at 1 million critters a day” (paragraph 9). Not only that, but in Brazil, a citizen-science roadkill app called “Sistema Urubu”, invented by Alex Bager, has estimated that more than 400 million Brazilian animals are struck down by cars annually. This article really made me think about my contribution to the statistics of animal deaths in a more profound and philosophical way. I may have only hit a small handful of different animals, but when everyone has had experiences like I have, that handful turns into an entire population. I can’t think about it too hard though, because, just like Brazilian wildlife veterinarian Mario Alves is quoted saying:

“I’m sad about the situation,” Alves said. “Not about each animal that I see. Or I would be”—he glanced skyward, casting for an English phrase—“under depression.” – Mario Alves, paragraph 7

Along with countries that already have highways, certain countries that don’t have modern roads have started developing them at an incredible rate, and the species in the area aren’t doing well to adapt to these new changes in their habitat. Goldfarb poses the question of the century: “Having profited wildly from a century of infrastructural growth, can the developed world deny other countries the benefits of connectivity?” (paragraph 59). While I agree with Goldfarb pointing this out, I believe the issue is more complicated than that. It’s not that developing countries are having a worse effect on their local ecosystems than developed countries, it’s just that they’re now catching up to the mortality rates that developed countries have had for quite some time. Either way, the introduction of roads and highways creates a pressing issue for the animals that must cross them to get to their homes.

All this saddening information poses a deeper question; how do we stop this? The first thing we must ask ourselves, is how did it get this way? In today’s modern society, cars have become a rite of passage, then a habit, then an obligation. It is nearly physically impossible to avoid using a motorized vehicle in this day and age. Especially when you live in a rural area. Humans need cars to transport them everywhere; from work, to school, to their favorite recreational area, to their friend’s house, and home, just to wake up the next day to do it all over again. In the past, we had trains and boats, before that we had horses, and before that, all we had were our legs. All these advances in the technology of transportation were created to allow people to travel further and explore more territory, decreasing travel time and most importantly, expending less effort. Over time, our towns and cities were shaped by these technological advances, and now we’ve put ourselves in a position where we just can’t live without cars. It’s ingrained in every aspect of our society.

So how do we stop it? Unfortunately, I don’t think we can fully stop animal deaths by motor vehicles. It’s just the unpleasant reality that in order for humans to live a life of comfort and ease, with our transportation taking us farther than any species in the animal kingdom has walked in its life, we choose to use cars. However, this doesn’t mean we must sacrifice our morality. The only thing we can do is mitigate the effects of roads on our ecosystem. Goldfarb explains that there are many ways to reduce the amount of deaths from roads every year, with a combined effort of legislation, monitoring, education, and the installation of wildlife crossings. The biggest issue with roads is that they fragment the natural habitat of many species. Goldfarb said “In a 2018 study, Clara Grilo and others found that habitat fragmentation by roads posed a graver threat than direct mortality” (paragraph 44).  Wildlife crossings help connect their fragmented habitats, lessening the number of interactions an animal has with the road, and giving it a lower chance of coming into contact with a fast-moving car. Another solution is to put up fences and barriers the animals can’t cross. An article titled “Fences best at reducing roadkill”by Dana Kobilinsky at The Wildlife Society, quoted Jochen Jaeger, who said “’While fences are the most effective’, Jaeger said, ‘they ought to include areas where animals can cross’. If you fence the road entirely and have no crossing structures on the road, the animals can’t recolonize empty habitats’” So if we have roads with fences, combined with wildlife crossings, we can vastly reduce animal mortality from cars. Goldfarb also makes the case that monitoring the animals in a certain habitat can help people get a better idea of what struggles said animals must face and can also contribute to educating the population about how dangerous cars can be to them, thus motivating capable people to better protect them. Education and legislation go hand-in-hand, because an educated population is more likely to support legislation to lessen the effects that roads have on the ecosystem. Basically, you have to get the general population to care. Goldfarb states “More than conservation, then, safety—and liability—has motivated road managers to install fences and crossings” (paragraph 51), which I agree with, because one of the key motivators in getting the general population to care, is to highlight how roadkill not only effects the animals that perish, but can also lead to humans perishing as well.

Researching this issue has opened my eyes to the unfortunate truth of our modern society, and even made me think about the human condition, and how we humans seldom care about the issues we create for other organisms. There are only two ways to solve animal mortality rates at the hands of cars: create new technology that improves transportation in a way that doesn’t endanger animals, or settle for the transportation we have now and just try to work within the boundaries of our car centered infrastructure to keep as many animals safe as we can. The more I learn about this subject, the more I come to the realization that modern human society has an almost completely negative effect on our environment. However, there is always a positive side. With new advances in technology, come new issues, and new ways to solve such issues. Human ingenuity will always invent ways to solve the issues we create. Many people don’t care about the issues that face other organisms, but there are just as many who do. The best thing we can do is care.

Works Cited:

1. Goldfarb, Ben. “How Roadkill Became an Environmental Disaster” The Atlantic,  November 26, 2019, { https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/11/roads-brazil-giant-anteaters/602587/ } [Accessed 0ctober 22, 2025]
2. Kobilinsky, Dana. “Fences best at reducing roadkill” The Wildlife Society, May 1, 2017, { https://wildlife.org/fences-best-at-reducing-roadkill/ } [Accessed October 22, 2025]

Nature and the Environment

The theme I’d like to write about for this semester is “Nature and the Environment”. I’ve always been fascinated with the topic of the human impact on the environment and the various ways we could go about protecting the environment and ensuring that the generations after us can live healthy and safe lives on our planet. For a memoir, I could write about a beach cleanup I volunteered in during high school, or a tree planting event I participated in during middle school. For an annotation, I could place the focus around some of the pictures of human trash in the ocean and on animals and explain why these pictures exist and how to get motivated to help. I could explore how social media can worsen the climate crisis by inducing a sense of powerlessness and doom within the general population by pushing a “there’s nothing we can do, it’s too late” narrative along with the annotated pictures. For an argument, I could discuss who’s really at fault for human pollution, the individual, the government, or the corporation. I could also discuss the different ways to save the planet and the arguments for and against them. The environment is a heavy topic, so I’d like to end all three of these essays on a positive note, highlighting how much progress we’ve already made, and continue to make to this day.