What's the Bigger Question

Without government intervention, businesses will use our capitalist framework to do what they want, even more than they already do. In the United States, more than anywhere else in the world, businesses influence the government for their benefit, not the public’s. It’s classic profits over people.

Recently, some news agencies are reporting that the current administration is looking to repeal carbon pollution standards for coal and gas power plants.

This is alarming because, as a country that likes to brag about being the ultimate superpower, our backpedaling indicates how deep our hidden problems are. It almost feels like we are on the verge of losing our biggest resource, our clean air and water.

Digging deeper, it isn’t hard for an ordinary citizen like me to see that we have done nothing to make energy demands more fuel-efficient or less reliant on fossil fuels that burn into the air, instead of renewables that draw from the sun and convert it into usable energy.

What’s more alarming is that thousands of young adults graduate from esteemed universities, and we still haven’t had an invention that made hybrids more affordable or received a subsidy from the school, business, or government on the grounds of national security.

Without confusing socialism with communal contribution for a better country, shouldn’t the taxes we pay go toward improving our lives, not just be swindled to the point that we are now in debt? Imagine if the trillions of dollars went to improving energy efficiency; then we wouldn’t need coal or gas power plants, and we wouldn’t need those restrictions at all. They would be a moot point.

It feels like we are at a crossroads, but we are moving backward, despite all the smart people in the EPA and in our country.