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Consumerism and the environment
Consumerism and the environment
Consumerism and the environment
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Carbon emissions have become an issue to the environment by changing the temperature and depleting the ozone. Technology made the ability for water and other essential resources to be readily available for people to use outside and inside the home. Humans have increased the use of water for irrigation and pleasure decreasing the availability of water, while emitting carbon from using water. The amount of water used today has put pressure on the water system. By examining Figure 1, most students use enough water to release more than 0.40kg of 〖CO〗_2 per shower. The data that I recorded is on the higher end of the spectrum for the class. Although, this information only shows the 〖CO〗_2 released for each shower interpreting minute values magnifying the values could lead to a greater impact. If the data was magnified to include all of America, or the whole world and everyone took showers everyday that exceeded 0.40kg 〖CO〗_2 per shower, the values would be astronomical and have a large impact. An increase in 〖CO〗_2 levels potentially causes the temperature to increase with a cascade of events, such as melting mountains and glaciers, natural disasters and harm to natural systems. The amount of 〖CO〗_2 emitted has an effect that does not just impact one aspect of the environment, it affects many. The temperature of the atmosphere changes the temperature of the water, causing habitats of thousands of fish to alter. The biodiversity of rivers, oceans and lakes declines because species must alter to their environment, however if they cannot they will no longer survive.
The depletion of water is crucial because it is a necessary resource for survival. Freshwater is about 2.5% of the Earth, mainly hidden underground or in the form of glaci...
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...(Figure 7). In this case, this could mean that my fridge is not as efficient as other fridges. But, as seen in the graphs of electricity, people are using electricity for many appliances and electronics not just for necessity but for pleasure. Imagining, the usage of electricity in a larger view, thousands of people use electronics throughout the day that take up energy as well as, give off carbon emissions.
Humans are faced with a trade-off, they may need the food, the energy to power their electronics and the water, but they are also causing harm. As seen with this data sample, people tend to expend resources, without giving back to the environment. Energy is being used up, resources are depleting and the human population continues to grow. In order for humans to sustain a lifestyle such as this, a new way for obtaining sustainability will need to be formulated.
As small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle, they mastered both agriculture and animal domestication. These small settled groups quickly evolved into cities and towns that encompassed the entire globe. Today the estimated population of the world is over 6.2 million people.1 As the population has grown, it has had several deleterious effects on the Earth. These include climate changes, the spread of diseases, declining food production, deforestation, and environment pollution (particularly air pollution). As people have become more conscious of these harmful effects, they have begun to devise strategies to combat this problem. Among the suggested responses include a switch to renewable energy, a call for zero population growth, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
Carbon dioxide or CO2 is known to be one of a number of gases that are astonishingly transparent to the visible light that falls on the Earth from the Sun, but it absorb the infra-red radiation that emitted by the warm surface of our Earth, to prevents its loss into space. Moreover, CO2 has varied considerably and this affected the Earth’s temperature. Most common source of this CO2 is known as the fossil fuel. Fossil fuels are primarily coal, hydrocarbons, natural gas, or fuel oil that formed from the remains of the dead plants and also animals. The burning fossil fuel that has been created by humans is the largest source of emissions of the carbon dioxide.
There is no hesitation when it comes to whether humans impact the global environment. However, it is questioned in whether human’s ecological footprint is either negatively or positively impacting. In clear perspective, humans share from both sides and their ecological footprint is noted towards whether it will benefit or harm the environment around them. Topics such as overpopulation, pollution, biomagnification, and deforestation are all human impacted and can harm the environment, but some include benefits into helping the world around us with solutions to their problems.
Many of these problems that might harm mankind’s survival on earth are results of mankind’s own actions such as increasing consumption of energy, water and raw materials, increasing production of waste and emissions and increasing usage of land. If we want to continue to survive on this planet, we should make a change to our lifestyles, by finding a sustainable way to continue living our lives without hurting the earth so that our natural resource base and fragile eco-system will be protected.
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society faces today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today, the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been the slowest” (geocraft).
There is no doubt that human activity is having a significant impact on our environment. These environmental impacts include depleting our natural resources, air and water pollution, climate change, destruction of habitats, and loss of biodiversity. Because of these growing concerns, we need to learn how to live sustainably. Living sustainably will allow us to conserve our limited resources more wisely so they will be available for future generations (Withgott & Brennan, 2011, Chapter 1).
We often take for granted the earth’s natural resources that are so vital to our existence and our survival. We don’t fetch our own water; we don’t preserve our own heat; we don’t conduct our own electricity. All these resources delivered to our own homes just as quietly and easily as going outside getting air. But as quietly as they come, they can be just as quietly consumed without knowing how much. Every single day how we live affects the earth’s ecological system. Therefore, it is very important to keep track of how much of resource we consume. Ecological footprint is a helpful way for us to know how much our lifestyle is affecting the earth’s ecological system – a methodology used to measure the level of our consumption of natural resource and the affect such consumption has on the planet. Our lifestyle – how often and how much we drive; how often and how much we purchase new products; how much or less we recycle – can directly affect and put pressure on the planet. Personal ecological footprint helps individual to put in perspective how much their lifestyle directly affects th...
The evidence clearly provided in this essay strongly supports the argument that greenhouse gases caused by air pollution are the main cause of anthropogenic climate change. The tables and graphs demonstrate just how greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. As is evident, climate change is an ever growing problem globally. Due to the increase in anthropogenic air pollution, greenhouse gases have amplified also, as shown by table 2. Figure one shows how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased exponentially, mirrored by anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. The various examples described clearly support the argument that greenhouse gases caused by air pollution are the major anthropogenic causes of climate change.
Every day when looking out a window, people see a beautiful earth. The earth is intriguing, but hinges on a delicate balance. Many natural resources keep the grass green and the sky blue. Man has made quite an impression on our world, and has transformed the earth's resources into tools to make life easy. However, mans' manipulation on earth has become detrimental to the health of our planet and the safety of mankind. Through the use and production of resources such as oil and energy, man is gradually poisoning the earth. Pollution has become such a dilemma in society; there is no real control or a feasible solution to society's recklessness. Without complete change, our system will collapse. The earth will eventually retaliate with disaster, or corporate control of our economy will cause hysteria and depression. Evaluation of the consequences and repercussion of worldwide pollution, may give people a better idea of what the future holds.
For my Environmental Outreach Report I learned about the impact of human’s on the environment in industrialized nations like the United States. The lecture I went to was entitled, “If Sustainability is the solution, what is the problem?” In the lecture we learned that humans must lessen the damage they put on the earth if they want it to be habitable for future generations. We also learned that the evidence that humans are harming the environment is the loss of biodiversity, air pollution, and the change in cold environments. Scientific research has proven that all of these issues on planet earth is due to human environmental impact.
Freshwater is quite scarce, but it is even scarcer than one might think: about seventy percent of all freshwater is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland and is unavailable to humans. Most of the remainder is present as soil moisture or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater. It is not economically feasible to extract this waster for use as drinking water. This leaves less than one percent of the world’s fresh water that is available to humans. It includes the water found in lakes, reservoirs, groundwater that is shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. These freshwater sources are the only sources that are frequently replenished by rain and snowfall, and therefore are renewable. At the current rates of consumption, however, this supply of fresh water will not last. Pollution and contamination of freshwater sources exacerbate the problem, further reducing the amount of freshwater available for human consumption. Something must be done if humans want to even survive in the near future: the lack of clean drinking water is already the number one cause of disease in the world today. The first step is worldwide awareness of the water crisis: governments and the citizens they govern worldwide need to know about this problem and be actively involved in solving this problem.
"China Plans to Regulate Some of Its Carbon Emissions for the First Time Ever." Smithsonian. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
Humans have become a threat to our own way of life by consuming more resources than needed, blind to the consequences that we may face in the future. As of 2016 the world population is at 7.4 billion and it is estimated to be at 11.2 billion by the year 2100. However 10 billion is the maximum population that can be sustained in terms of food security, only one of the many factors to global sustainability. Due to the fact that human consumption exceeds the amount of resources available, the United Nations “recognizes that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge” in A/RES/70/1. Sustainable development is not only required to fulfill the necessities of the present but to guarantee the capability for future generations to satisfy theirs.
There is no better example of humans’ relationship to nature than idea of sustainable development. It is imperative that we develop in a sustainable manner if we wish to live in harmony with nature. Unfortunately, we have been developing in the opposite direction. For many years the west has been able to get away with using more than their fair share of resources because the less developed nations don’t have the technology to utilize these resources for themselves. If this trend continues it poses a serious problem to global sustainability. Rapid development in nations like India and China have pushed their resource consumption levels up, closing the gap between third and first world. With such a high rate of consumption in the developed countries, there is not much room for the third world to develop without depleting our resources to unsustainable levels. The entire world cannot live the same wasteful life enjoyed by the many developed countries. If nothing is done, the south will catch up to the western level of consumption and we will no longer be able to sustain life for generations to come. After researching this issue it is apparent that the best solution is to develop the west to a level of sustainability that is universally applicable and allows the less developed nations to eventually live the same lifestyle as the west without compromising the livelihood of future generations. This essay will go on to explain how the western way of life is not a viable option for everyone to live by and how developing nations are in fact already following the path of these western nations.
Many people assume that the environment is not in danger. They believe that as technology advances, we do not need to worry about renewing natural resources, recycling, and finding new ways to produce energy. They state that one person in the world does not make a large difference. In reality, each individual's contribution greatly affects our environment. Our natural resources are slowly disappearing, and we must work together to save them and the Earth from ruin.