Ecological Alarm Sounds Off!

Environmental sustainability refers to the ability of mankind to be good stewards over Earth’s gifts of natural resources; the level of sustainable performance greatly affects future generations to come.  This responsibility or lack of thereof has started an uproar among society today as to whether or not our usage of these resources through economic growth and population expansion have created greater battles to fight.  The theory of global warming suggests that our planet Earth is getting warmer by the second with increase levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide filling the air we breathe.

There is an ecological crisis upon us; the catalyst for this newfound emergence was ignited by the turning point from an agricultural-based economy to becoming more industrialized.  According to Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis written by the Washington, D.C. Island Press, several ecosystem services have been degraded as consequence of supplying other services to meet human’s desires such as, an increase in food production. Terrestrial ecosystems have become a net sink of carbon dioxide emissions.  Heighten emissions of carbon dioxide contribute to global climate change.  Hence, regulating global climate through carbon sequestrations has intensified. It will take centuries for global temperatures to balance out with higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, even longer for biological systems to adjust. Overwhelming amounts of nitrogen contribute to eutrophication of freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems. Nitrogen is claimed to be vital in the formulation of the ground-level ozone layer, this destruction would deplete the ozone layer in the stratosphere causing increased UV-B radiation from the sun and climate change. 

Chapter one from A New Green History of the World by Ponting, says the elimination of trees affected the island’s soil; nutrients were depleted by the crops and soil erosion occurred.  The land became malnourished, unable to produce adequate food for survival. Ultimately, the environment was ruined. The American Policy Roundtable website believes in a strategy called “no regrets” since there is not enough evidence to support global warming.

The environmental problems we face today are new and old.  From the Easter Land reading, it’s clear that using resources, such as trees, and not replenishing them has a long-lasting impact on the livelihood of mankind, growing capabilities of land and exposure to harsh environmental conditions.  Similar to the island, the world has limited resources to support society and all of our high demands.  In Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis written by the Washington, D.C. Island Press, the change of the planet from rapid growing demands for food and water to a more sophisticated economy presents new obstacles to overcome with those advantages. The degradation of ecosystem services has solved one problem, while creating another one. The advancement in production and distribution has caused an overload of pollutants and harmful chemicals floating in the air, and underground. On the American Policy Roundtable website, it is argued that if global warming did occur, this event would be beneficial. Between 5000-3000 B.C., a period where mankind began to build its first civilizations, climate was much warmer than global warming theory predictions.

The environmental problems that I have researched are seemingly irreversible.  On the American Policy Roundtable website, it is believed that scientific evidence has not proven that human activities negatively affect the Earth’s climate in any way.  However, in Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis written by the Washington, D.C. Island Press, it states that substantial efforts made in institutions and governance, economic policies and other incentives along with knowledge could significantly decrease the severity of the damage done.  In chapter one of A New Green History of the World by Ponting, Easter Island is now described as the most remote inhabited places on the earth; the settled Polynesians did not realize a way of not depleting their available island resources and therefore, irreversibly damaged their life support system.