Hello everyone, my name is max van der Stoel. I am from the Netherlands and I’m proudly the minister of foreign affairs. I am here to talk about the ongoing sulfur and acid rain problem that is going on currently in our planet and I hope to convince all of you to take my advice and help save the planet from toxic sulfur emissions and acid rain. Some of you guys won’t see eye to eye with my solution but that’s ok I hope to still try and convince you.
My advice to help save our planet is for the European community to adopt the kind of emission reductions that has been used over here in the Netherlands. I am hopping everyone can agree to cut back on their sulfur emission use by at least 20%. This might sound a little crazy because there are some cons to this like it costing about 110 million dollars and it leading to closing a couple of major coal power plants. The cons in this argument get complete outweighed by the pros. You may be wondering what are the pros? Well, the pros are if we were to cut back at least 20% we would help tremendously on cutting back the amount of acid that goes into our water and soil. When too much acid builds up in our water and soil it creates A very scary problem which is acid rain. Acid rain which can cause respiratory diseases or can make these diseases much worse which would result in many deaths. Catching one of these diseases can cause chronic bronchitis which makes it extremely hard to breathe and can have lasting effects which can lost for a lifetime. Not only is acid rain affecting our health, but it also can wreak havoc on forests. When acid rain penetrates the soil, it breaks down nutrients such as magnesium and calcium that trees need to stay healthy. Acid rain also releases aluminum into the soil, making it difficult for trees to absorb water. Higher elevation trees in mountainous areas, such as spruce and fir, are more at risk because they are exposed to acid clouds and fog that contain more acid than rain and snow. It deprives the needles of important nutrients. This nutrient loss makes trees and forests more susceptible to damage from infections, insects, and the cold. Acid rain can also damage many other things, including buildings, statues, monuments. Chemicals in acid rain can age and wear down stone statues, reducing their value and beauty. If we were to cut back just 20% on our emissions, it will help eliminate all these problems little by little.
My hope is that thru all the cons of acid rain that I just listed out it makes people want to approve the treaty and cut back on emissions by at least 20% with doing this we can help little by little keeping this acid rain away from us before it becomes too late thank you all for listening.
