Deciding between supporting the arts and protecting the environment is a difficult choice to make, but I think I would choose protecting the environment. Arts help to maintain our culture and serve as a source of entertainment. However, we need a healthy environment in order to survive so we must protect it. We need to protect the environment now to help prevent health problems, to maintain the ecosystem, and to preserve the Earth for our children.
Pollution from factories and cars can cause damage to the environment. Moreover, pollution causes health problems particularly for children and the elderly who have weaker immune systems. We need to ensure that there are controls on the amount of pollution when possible so as to prevent health problems caused by breathing dirty air.
We also need to pay attention to the ecosystem. Trees, plant life, and people all depend on each other. An unhealthy environment can have harmful effects on the ecosystem. For example, if a plant dies because of changes to the environment and that plant is food for a animal, that animal won't have any food. If humans use that animal as a food source, there could be big problems.
If we do not respect our environment now, it will continue to get worse and our children will suffer the consequences. They would not have the same quality of air to breathe or natural beauty to admire. That would be sad.
Without clean air to breathe, a healthy ecosystem, and a future for our children, the human race would not survive. That's why protecting our environment is important. If we have a healthy environment, we have healthy children who will be able to participate and appreciate the arts.
Frankly speaking, both arts and environment are important to human being. However, if I were the CEO of a company, I would rather give the money to protect the environment than to support the arts. Because environment protection is quite urgent and matters the future of our globe, while arts is a continuous process to improve the quality of life.
First of all, environment protection is very urgent. Global warming is becoming more and more serious. Many spices are dying, the ice in South Pole is melting, and many rivers are being contaminated. Now it is time for us to do something to save our earth and our own future.
Secondly, environment protection is very important for all, including human being, plants, animals and the Earth. When I was a little boy, I often played in the river that is located beside my village. The water was so clean that we could just drink it directly. There were also many kinds of fishes in the river. It was such a beautiful place that I often played for a whole day. Now things are totally different, the water became brown in color due to pollution from factories, very few fishes can live there. Those small children can never enjoy the fun that I once did.
Thirdly, the art is a continuous process to improve the quality of life, which is not as urgent as environment protection. In addition, there are many ways by which funds can be raised for arts, such as exhibitions and auctions of artistic works. Environment protection needs money more urgently than arts do.
Although both arts and the environment are important, I prefer to give the money to support environment protection, due to the three reasons mentioned above.
Guan zhong, the ancient Chinese politician, once said that people would know rites and courtesy only after their granaries were full. By this he meant that people would first try to improve their living conditions before they could engage in any artistic activities or improve their behaviors. The environment is closely related to people's living conditions. If a company is going to do something for the people, I would recommend it to give the money to protect the environment.
With the rapid economic development in recent years, China is now facing very serious environmental problems. According some news reports, Yellow River, the "Mother River" of the Chinese nation that nurtured generations of Chinese people over the past thousands of years, has
been polluted by industrial wastes and has much less stream of water at present than in previous times, which has imposed great problems on the life and work of the people living along the banks. What these people urgently need is not artistic works hanging on the walls for enjoyment but rather clean water for their daily use.
In some areas in China, though people are much wealthier than before, they live in a much worse environment due to their negligence of environmental protection in the process of developing the economy. Several years ago,
I went to a small town in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, to visit some of the chemical plants there that have business connections with our company. The town was surrounded by green mountains and there was a river running across it. What surprised me was that the chemical plants there had adopted no measures to protect the environment. Due to the chemical wastes discharged without any treatment, the river turned into a blue color and the mountains looked like men's faces with scars on them.
I wondered that even though the local people had earned enough money, would their life be happy in such a polluted environment.
China is still a developing country now. A large proportion of the population is still leading a poor life. Even in those areas where the economy has developed to a high level, the people have to face the environmental problems that sometimes are detrimental to their health. I think we can benefit more from investing money into environmental protection than imputing it in artistic activities.
