The Factors Surrounding Societies Environmental Insustainability

Since the industrial Revolution, human beings have begun inventing, creating and driving human evolution. This has created an exponential increase in our intelligence as a race, and collectively humans have gained more knowledge these past two hundred years than ever before in human existence. This knowledge however, due to the methods of obtaining it, comes at a price. Using methods such as fracking, mass logging, internal combustion for uses of transportation, farming and many others, the human race has achieved feats that would astound even ourselves only decades ago. It is also these practices, amongst others, that have led to mass deforestation, extinction, pollution, contamination, and the overall degradation of our environment. Such methods of living cater to our current wants, but disregard our future needs. In order to achieve a sustainable manner of life, a paradigm shift must take place in our manner of acquiring the basic materials for survival. In the words of Albert Einstein “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” The first thing to be done about the crimes against ourselves is to stop committing them. The human practices directly contributing to environmental degradation and over consumption of natural resources are affluence, greed, industrial pollution and negligence.

In Terms of Big Business, the reason the environment often suffers and the profit margins increase is due to lack of awareness on the companies part, or overall negligence, both are inexcusable. Because companies can save money by dumping into the ocean or landfills, it is their clear first option. Instead of doing the work to institute clean energy alternatives, companies continue to pollute the air with ...

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... and Australia are responsible for consuming 85 percent of the resources, but only contain 15 percent of the population. The lesser developed countries located in South America, Africa, and the rest of Asia contain many more times the amount of people, but only consume 15 percent of the resources. Finally, it is Affluence that allows this to occur. Those that have the means to survive control the world, and those that don’t, die. Two things are needed for a sustainable earth: sustainability, using resources in such a way so that future generations have access to it and equitable living an equal life with equal opportunities for everyone. Sadly, in the current time with the current manner of thinking, these goals are impossible. It is only with a different, higher, improved manner of thinking can we hope to repair the damages and dig ourselves out of this hole.