The writers of The Lord of the Rings were ahead of their time. Growing up, my favorite part of the series was that it provided me an opportunity to spend time with my father. The most memorable part of it all for me was the grey and sickly creature which adored a golden ring. This wasn’t an ordinary ring, however. This ring was magical and allowed the person wearing it to possess the power of invisibility. While growing up, people always ask you what your superpower would be if you could have one. I always said invisibility but i’ve come to realize that the gift of going unnoticed is hardly a gift at all. Sure, it saved Frodo from death numerous times, but it also cost him a great deal of his sanity. And what even is the point to living if you’re not living as yourself?

Gifts rarely come without strings attached and the strings attached to invisibility weaved a web so intricate that many of the hobbits could not find the way out. You see, evil cloaked men would find whoever wore the ring and hunt them in order to attain it. All of this hunting and waiting led the hobbits and one magical wizard to destroy the object of everyone's affections and appreciation, in order to protect it. So when Schmiegel, the little grey creature, said that the ring was his “precious,” he didn't do so ignorantly. He knew the powers and the drawbacks of such an amiable object and yet he still seeked to protect it from the imperfect hands of the outside world. In this light, Schmiegel can be seen as a protective agency, such as an environmental organization or a sector of the United Nations. These agencies seek to protect our environment from those who wish to exploit it’s values. Companies responsible for deforestation, loss of animal habitat and pollution rarely care to invest money that could be pocketed as profit into protecting the land they steal from, and some merely see all of this as business. It may be business, but the privilege of such comes at a staggering price. In my lifetime, polar bears will become extinct, pollution will leave people vulnerable to disease and infection, and every daily difficulty i find troubling will seem like nothing. This is all the cost of living on such a beautiful planet and to protect it from those who wish to ruin it by greedily taking more for himself and leaving nothing to those who do not know any better is everyone’s duty. Perhaps the only way we can truly defend Earth is by destroying it beyond reparation? Because every day I live and die on this planet, I remember that there is someone less fortunate than me, suffering because of the freedom I demand out of birthright. For America to call itself the greatest, we need to start defending freedom for all people. The freedom to protect our environment is one that rarely goes recognized in this day and age.