Reflection

Reflection

My story with water began as a child growing up in Toronto. My family would always visit Niagara Falls – I was astonished by the natural, majestic beauty of the great falls. Seeing the sheer magnitude of water dropping down from the cliffs led me to feel the minuteness of humanity relative to nature at a young age. As a child, I already understood that humanity only represents a tiny fraction of biological presence in the world, yet it has an overwhelmingly negative impact on the environment. I crafted my piece to represent how an economy driven by profit and cost-cutting is plundering the oceans, putting marine life in grave danger, and irreversibly polluting the world’s water sources. I believe that water is something that should be untainted and protected regardless of the age and time of human existence. Water cannot and should not be defined with prices, be abused for profit, and be exploited for convenience. The commercialization of natural resources has shifted human belief to feel comfortable with unsustainable utilization and pollution of Earth’s natural resources. Society’s obsession with so-called productive “efficiency” sacrifices the wellbeing of the environment and our planet’s other organisms; this is the message I wish to communicate in my piece.