I'm just taking a break from writing a little report I have to do for tomorrow. It's on my Ecological Footprint. The quiz we had to take for this class is ok; I have doubts about its real accuracy in its tabulations. It definitely works on the basis of averages and mean calculation, and is relatively non-specific, and is confined in its questions. But it seems to be ok. Here's the link if you'd like to take it.
Here's some of what I've written so far:
We all have an impact on our environment. We all depend on the environment as well. The natural ecosystems that make up the biosphere are what sustain life and regulate the intricate cycles and systems of the planet. The composition of the atmosphere, the currents and temperatures of the oceans, the residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the biosphere, or the oceans, and the climate are all cumulative results of finely balanced cycles and interactions between the four spheres; the biosphere, the lithosphere, the atmosphere, and the hydrosphere. The biosphere, in particular, supplies us with clean air, clean water, healthy food, shelter, clothing, medicines, and waste absorption. It sustains more life better than anything else we know of in the universe. Yet human activities have disrupted the vast, interconnected and complex balance of the global environment, in a way that is unprecedented.
Today, everyone has heard about climate change. Some still dispute it, while others try to fight it in the interests of ourselves and the multitudes of species with whom we share our planet and the risks of such global ecological disturbances. Yet still comparatively few understand what is happening, how it affects us, and why it's important. Climate change is only a tiny issue in the geological time scale of the Earth, and so are we. In a more short-term way, the incredible havoc we are wreaking on our planet threatens many people and even more different species with catastrophes and extinctions.
The path down which our policy-makers seem to be leading us does not seem to be the most prudent or effective way of solving the issues we face. Throughout the past centuries, resource extraction and the pursuit of revenue have long taken precedence over science or environmental conservation. The conservation efforts of people like Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir were in their time revolutionary and, for many people, questionable restraints on the relentless commerce of their people. Today, in a world that is post Soviet Union, in which overpopulation, poverty, environmental damage and resource extraction are occurring in some of the poorest, most vulnerable, and environmentally fragile parts of the world, where their economies are still Primary or Secondary Economies which produce a few goods for export to be consumed by the wealthiest nations, the environmental agenda and the human welfare/justice agenda are inextricable, yet simultaneously almost irreconcilable. The actions of policy makers today usually amounts to too little, too late, or else measures that do nothing but reinforce the ill-advised status quo.
A huge amount of environmental destruction has always been due to people's appetite for consumption. As we see today, the rise of new industrial and economic powers such as China and India are demonstrating how people whose standard of living has been so low for so long want what people like Europeans or North Americans have. The great irony is that while we have and continue to overexploit our natural ecosystems and resources, as well as enslaved the economies of many of those poorer, "Less Developed" countries through debt to the International Monetary Fund in order to enable us to have truly astronomical levels of over-consumption, now those people want what we've always had (and who are we to deny them), yet their preferably accelerated economic and social development would do more harm than good to themselves and the local and global environment. In order to truly make progress in the 21st century, we need to raise the standard of living of the majority of the people on the planet, while reducing everyone's (especially our) ecological footprint. To think this is impossible, or fundamentally contradictory, is far from true. However it is certainly true that the current global economic and political system is stacked against these innovations.
Today, everyone has heard about climate change. Some still dispute it, while others try to fight it in the interests of ourselves and the multitudes of species with whom we share our planet and the risks of such global ecological disturbances. Yet still comparatively few understand what is happening, how it affects us, and why it's important. Climate change is only a tiny issue in the geological time scale of the Earth, and so are we. In a more short-term way, the incredible havoc we are wreaking on our planet threatens many people and even more different species with catastrophes and extinctions.
The path down which our policy-makers seem to be leading us does not seem to be the most prudent or effective way of solving the issues we face. Throughout the past centuries, resource extraction and the pursuit of revenue have long taken precedence over science or environmental conservation. The conservation efforts of people like Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir were in their time revolutionary and, for many people, questionable restraints on the relentless commerce of their people. Today, in a world that is post Soviet Union, in which overpopulation, poverty, environmental damage and resource extraction are occurring in some of the poorest, most vulnerable, and environmentally fragile parts of the world, where their economies are still Primary or Secondary Economies which produce a few goods for export to be consumed by the wealthiest nations, the environmental agenda and the human welfare/justice agenda are inextricable, yet simultaneously almost irreconcilable. The actions of policy makers today usually amounts to too little, too late, or else measures that do nothing but reinforce the ill-advised status quo.
A huge amount of environmental destruction has always been due to people's appetite for consumption. As we see today, the rise of new industrial and economic powers such as China and India are demonstrating how people whose standard of living has been so low for so long want what people like Europeans or North Americans have. The great irony is that while we have and continue to overexploit our natural ecosystems and resources, as well as enslaved the economies of many of those poorer, "Less Developed" countries through debt to the International Monetary Fund in order to enable us to have truly astronomical levels of over-consumption, now those people want what we've always had (and who are we to deny them), yet their preferably accelerated economic and social development would do more harm than good to themselves and the local and global environment. In order to truly make progress in the 21st century, we need to raise the standard of living of the majority of the people on the planet, while reducing everyone's (especially our) ecological footprint. To think this is impossible, or fundamentally contradictory, is far from true. However it is certainly true that the current global economic and political system is stacked against these innovations.
