Floridian Energy Plant ablaze for days, forcing locals to stay out of school and inside. What does this mean for all of us?

Covanta Energy Plant was made in order to reduce the use of greenhouse gasses and save our environment by diverting post-recyclable waste from landfills. Now it's caught fire and has been emitting toxic smoke into the very air it was created to purify.  

The fire started on Sunday, its causes still under investigation. Firefighters are striving to get to its center, even by extreme methods like breaking down walls through the plant, demolishing an entire building and using heavy duty machinery to do it all. The scale of the population that this fire is endangering is larger than one may have expected, as the countless heaps of garbage that consumed and powered the plant are burning up into an extremely dangerous smoke. Local residents are taking multiple safety precautions to avoid exposure to its toxicity. Two schools have been dismissed early, all outdoor events in the area rescheduled, and people have been instructed to close their windows while driving through the area. Additionally, pregnant people, children, the elderly and people with pre-existing respiratory conditionals are being very strongly advised to stay inside, and to wear masks if they must take the risk of going outside during these trying times. These are only some temporary ‘setbacks’, yet this fire points to a larger problem that all of us are facing; the impending doom of our environment, and the threat that every living thing's health and well being are under, and will continue to be under, unless serious changes are made. 

This fire may not worry many because it’s “just a small local instance that won't affect that us”. Yes, but how many of these ‘small instances’ have we seen? How many more are yet to come? The long-term effects of this fire have yet to be seen, but as it is thrown onto the hellish burning pile of all the countless other selfish things we have done to the environment to save money (like the burning fossil fuels) along with all the other accidents we have had (like the New Orleans oil spill of 2021) things don’t seem as simple and it's easier to worry. To see the seriousness of our situation that so many environmentalists have spent their lives preaching about. This fire is just another brick in the wall, but hopefully it can be more than that to those who read this. 

My name is Julia and I’m a high school junior. Next generation politics, and YVote in general, have given me the academic foundation that I need to start pursuing a career in politics. I joined this program in my sophomore year and through it I have met amazing people, many of whom write for this blog. By listening to those peers and engaging in a variety of discussions, all of them based on deeply complex and even emotion packed current events, they have broadened my perspective. I hope to write about those and many other topics in the effort to contribute to the current political state but more realistically, a few readers perspectives.