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Paternal Influence Research Paper

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Paternal Influence From a very young age my parents have provided me with information on which they have hoped for me to develop my own thoughts and opinions. They never once told me what to think about anything, they merely acted as a medium through which I received facts for my consideration. My father would tell me about his childhood, his early years taking place surrounded by coal towns before any solid regulation standards were enacted. The harmful environmental effects from the practices of these mines were, as he stated, “evident in the streams that ran orange with sulfur and were void of all life.” The idea of this picture sickens me, and with recent political moves to weaken the EPA and it regulations, it has become clear that we could be on a path leading back to the way things were. …show more content…

The environment that surrounded him shaped him into who he is, so the surrounding sulfur creeks and dead streams concerned him greatly. By the time my dad started junior high there were numerous local streams that were polluted or even killed by the acid run off of both surface and deep coal mining. This was highly troubling, but over the next couple of years in the mid to late 1970s there was a huge reversal in the damage with the signing of the Clean Air and Water acts. This information always seemed so foreign to me, I couldn’t really imagine the impact of losing these trout streams I’ve grown up with. It’s not just the fishing either, so many species of fish and other stream life being wiped out of an area would devastate the local environment. Species such as raccoons, opossums, beavers, muskrats, and other mammals as well as aquatic birds would be greatly impacted by the loss of these streams. There would be an even greater negative impact on insect life, for without these feeding, breading, and birthing grounds many species would be threatened or even

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