My brother has always been naturally smart. School came easy to him, and while I got pulled out of class for help with reading once a week in first grade, he was miles ahead of everyone in his class in math and science. He even won an award for the best project on Wisconsin cheese in the 5^th grade. However, after finding my niche in college and excelling in the English and more creative spaces, I lost sight of my brother’s talents and strong suits that I first realized when he told my mom and me from his booster seat he wanted to either be Spiderman or an Astronaut when he grows up.

He struggled a bit in the first few months of college, but now that he is wrapping up his first year, I am realizing that he is also learning about his own strengths and in growing in so many areas in which he doesn’t yet realize.

Eric is obsessed with two things: space and the environment. He could easily fool you into thinking he is like any other 19-year-old who still rebels against his parents, gets in occasional trouble with his RA, and spends too much time procrastinating his work. But once you bring up something about the environment or space, and you’ve got his full attention.

Recently, my whole family drove up to Eric’s school for his surprise birthday dinner. Thanks to my uncle’s new-found passion for politics, he and Eric got into a heated argument over the environment and government funding. The night almost ended horribly – my uncle left and my brother was tense the rest of the night – but I told Eric not to get frustrated, instead to take his knowledge and passions to a place where he can educate others to see the importance of the environment and even space.

I am in Marketing, but my true passion and knowledge lay in animal rescue and health and fitness. So rather than feel as though I’m wasting away in a routine that doesn’t 100% line up with my passions, I use any medium possible to share my knowledge on advice to educate my friends, family, and even strangers who otherwise might not know the importance of spaying and neutering your pets! It’s fantastic. People have come up to me and said that they have lost weight in the double digits thanks to my workouts and health advice on YouTube, I have encouraged handfuls of people to adopt their pets from rescue groups rather than breeders or pet stores from my articles on the Odyssey and my personal blog, and I have made friends who have similar interests to me that I would never have befriended otherwise.

THIS is what you should be doing, I said to Eric. Now is the time in your life where you can choose which direction you want to take. Become an environmental engineer, work for Nassau, Hell maybe even go to the moon! Or at least use those passions to educate those around you so you know you are making a difference!

Like most of the advice I give, I expected this tip to go in one ear and out the other, but this week Eric asked me to proof one of his essays for his college writing course and I was almost in tears. He got to choose his topic for his final essay, and it was incredible. I made a few minor spelling and grammar edits, but the content is all 100% Eric. By that I mean: of course Eric wrote it, but it is what I see when I see Eric in the future, but even more impressive! He blew me away yet again, and for someone who doesn’t like to write, he did a damn good job at proving his point and showing his expertise in an area in which most people turn a blind eye. I’m really proud of him, so if he never takes my next piece of advice, which is to write for the Odyssey, I feel strongly inclined to share his essay here:

“Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that we probably only have about 1,000 years left on Earth”. Stephen Hawkings is a name that is known in most American households as one of the smartest people alive today. His predictions indicate that the path that humans are taking is driving the world to its imminent doom. Although 1,000 years does not mean that the same humans alive today will be greatly affected by the changes the world is undergoing, that does not mean that we should not take the fate of the human race into consideration.

The United States, an obvious world power in today’s economy, military, etc. is a country that has an enormous annual budget. It comes out to a whopping 3.8 trillion dollars per year. The United States budget has the potential to make a serious change in not only the fate of the people in the United States in the future but the citizens around the world today. However, the environmental budget in the US is 8.2 billion dollars annually: less than one percent of the US total budget. This argument can be countered by people who might say that the US has plenty of other things that are necessary to spend money on, which is true, however here is where the problem lies. In 2017, the US Department of Defense is allocated just under 600 billion dollars per year, tremendously higher than that of the environmental budget. The military power in the United States today is a department that has received a generous budget like this since it was established, and due to this, the current state of the US military stands miles above every other military power in the world. Although the protection of our country is nothing to take lightly, I don’t believe that a budget so massive is necessary on such a regular basis, when funding for other extremely important departments is lacking. I argue that overspending on the department of defense is taking away from other important departments, and the lack of spending on the environment due to overspending on our military can and should be changed. Not taking the environment into consideration is detrimental to the posterity of the US and other living people who live in less fortunate parts of the world. In order to make a change to the budget, support from many citizens would be needed. People must be informed on the facts about what we know about the negative direction the world is going as a whole. Also about the current state of the military, and how even if spending were to be cut significantly, US citizens could continue not worrying about enemy attacks, and live peacefully. Once support is gained and a group of people advocating for the cause is established, then it would be possible to potentially get the budget changed, but this is only possible if we change the education of our country.

The actual state of the US Department of Defense is explained very well in a video created by a group of individuals who felt it was their duty to expose the true wealth of our country's military. It explains how the US matches up against some of the other super powers in the world, who could be thought of as a potential threat to the US. According to the video, second to the United States’ 600 billion dollar annual military budget, is China’s annual defense budget, which is 190 billion dollars annually. The country who spends the second highest amount of money per year on military still pays less than a third than the US budget on defense. The video also compares the US possession of military weapons to the rest of the world's. It states that “China has 500 of their Type-99 Tanks, which are out-classed by the US tanks, of which the US have 8,700. The US has 10 aircraft carriers, the rest of the world combined has ten smaller ones. There are 8,400 attack helicopters across the world, of these, the United States has 6,400.” (Pinotto Roberto). The list of ways in which the US dominates the world of war goes on and on. These numbers expose the US for how well off the citizens of the US are in terms of military defense and funding, and that there is in fact no need for panic. I believe if people were informed on cold hard facts about the extensive measures the US puts forth for defense, people would view a cutback as a good thing. Once the citizens of the country are aware of the facts, and hopefully come to the conclusion that we are spending too much on the Department of Defense, then that is when we introduce where the money could be spent.

More than any other time in history, people are putting a great emphasis on cultural acceptance. It is becoming a nationwide mindset that everyone’s feelings should always be considered. I believe that with all the good that is being spread throughout the country at this time, that people should extend that consideration to the people who will be affected by climate change in the US after we die as well as people who are being affected even today. The US has a rather larger population of people why lead a lifestyle that is considered lavish by other people throughout the world. Should the rest of the world, and our posterity be negatively affected at the expense of our way of living? “The US population creates more waste per person than any other country in the world”(Surak Sarah) Since the citizens of our country are contributing most greatly to the extinction of our species, it only seems right that we would allocate a generous amount of money toward the environment in order to compensate for our large amounts of waste. Sadly, that is not the case. According to Jessica Blunden, “At the current rate the climate is changing, is is going to make the sea level rise to the point where 100 island nations will be underwater by the year 2100” (Blunden Jessica). The US is not focused enough on the people who are experiencing the horrors that come of US citizens way of life. The only countries who are really advocating for the betterment of the environment are the countries that are being affected by it. Fiji, for example, made a deal with the island of Kiribati, a small group of islands that is projected to be completely submerged by the ocean in less than 10 years time. The deal allowed the people of this small island nation to come live on Fiji one there land is gone. Fiji is known for being a major advocate for the environment, this is obvious because, as an island, they can relate to the people who need help the most. Fiji is lucky only because they are an island that has high peaks to fall back on when the sea level rises. If countries with more power understood what these island nations are experiencing largely due to lavish lifestyle, I think that a serious difference could be made. If people understood the difference we could make with even a small portion of the Department of Defense's budget I think most people would be on board.

Educating the public is a tricky task. The reason being that the media creates chaos. Their constant coverage of news that has to do with our enemies and the threats they make to the US scares the public every day. When people are concerned for their safety, they aren’t worried about price tags or polar bears, and that is why a military budget as massive as our own looks necessary. In fact, a study by Juliane Corman proves that people have a warped view on the military budget. This is obvious in a survey of over 13,000 US citizens who, when asked the question “do you think that the US allocates too much, too little, or just enough money toward the Department of Defense” (Corman Juliane), a majority of 85% of participants in the survey thought that the US is spending “too little” on the department of defense. The way US citizens perceive the stature of the US military is obviously inaccurate based on this survey, and this is all due to the frequent coverage of war and violence the media presents to the public. This is why it is important that educators in our country must make more of an effort to spread the truth about the environment, our effects on the environment, and the people and the world around us today as well as in the future is our only saving grace.

Project Learning Tree (PLT) is an “environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation,” PLT uses forests as a window into the world and provides educators with environmental education curriculum resources that can be integrated into lesson plans for all grades and subject areas. PLT teaches students how to think, not what to think, about complex environmental issues, and helps them acquire the skills they need to make sound choices about the environment.” (Project Learning Tree). The Green School, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn focuses heavily on civic involvement, and the students have reported to enjoy it. Here, teachers focus on educating students, not only on the affects their daily lives have on the environment, but bigger picture in how to solve the problems we are facing today. “Green is not just the environment…green is politics, government, and social justice”, says one teacher at The Green School. Students are loving the curriculum at The Green School and realize they are learning about something that matters. “We do a lot of things other schools are not doing,’ said Jose, 15. ‘I feel like we’re doing something important.” While students at The Green School are taking well to their environmentally-focused curriculum, most students throughout the country are not as fortunate. Today, fewer than 10% of teachers in the US are PLT certified and do not put an emphasis on environmental education. In order to bridge the gap between wanting to save the environment and actually saving the environment, US curricula are going to need to include PLT certification in all schools and emphasize to younger generations the politics, government, and social justice issues relating to the environmental crisis we are facing (Mireya Navarro).

Once the American people are educated on both the tremendous military budget, and the true urgency there is to better the environment the spending will shift. This will not only open up people’s eyes to where the budget is distributed, but also help the environment, save lives, and extend human existence on this planet.

Eric Redgate, 19
Eastern Connecticut State University