My Relationship with the Environment
“You look at that river gently flowing by [] it's peaceful. And all of a sudden, it's a gear shift inside you. And it's like taking a deep breath and going, "Oh yeah, I forgot about this.”” – Al Gore, The Inconvenient Truth (2006).
The environment. Since our birth to the world, anything that happens to it affects us in so many ways. We hear it being mentioned in a lot of our current events - something is wrong with it, and that something must be resolved soon. The thing about the environment is that all the problems related to it seem like entrapped in a loop – each activity, each deficiency, each progress affects a lot of things. A butterfly effect if you may.
Growing up Chinese, it has been quite a predicament living in what I should say a “bad” environment. China has been regarded as the most populous country in the world (“25 Most Populous Countries in the World”), and each one contributes to the global carbon footprint. Each one contributes to the environment in so many ways – as a consumer of resource, as a generator of waste, as a citizen of a nation that has been economically growing throughout the years. Each one in the population requires resources. But are we providing enough resources? Or rather, can we provide enough resources? This is not only a problem of China. It is a global problem.
Globally, there have been emerging issues in relation to resource allocation. Water, for one, has been a growing concern particularly because we are currently encountering problems with its supply and safety. Shortage of water has been happening in other countries, not because they do not have the technology to provide water, but because the quality of water available to them is not fit for use. Every life on earth, whether from the simplest microorganism to the most complex organism, depends on water to thrive. Furthermore, resource-generating activities such as agriculture would also require water to continue its supply of food for communities.
In light of agriculture, there had been issues regarding the quality of agricultural lands. It has been reported that 2/3 of agricultural lands show signs of degradation. The climate also affects me in a way. With the global climate change, seasons have been changing gravely. One day it is sunny, and then the next day it is rainy. A very popular case is with tropical countries wherein the climate patterns have changed drastically over the years. This affects crop growth in agricultural lands which heavily depend on the length of seasons.
In relation to climate change is our consumption of non-renewable sources of energy. We have seen our use of burning fossil fuels increasing with the advent of technology and fuel-powered machineries. With the carbon emissions increasing that contribute to our carbon footprint, this creates a lot of effects, particularly climate change. Not only do burning fossil fuels contribute to greenhouse gases that can easily change the way our atmosphere behaves, it also contributes to the amount of soot and harmful gases in the air, thereby increasing air pollution.
Air pollution is a very big concern for me, especially back in my home country (China) where even the government has admitted that our air is one of the worse in the world (Beech). There have been images and depictions of people who live in the cities such as Beijing who wake up with masks on their faces and with a picture of the sun instead of the actual sun gleaming through the city because of how polluted the air is. The biggest concern with air pollution is sickness and diseases, particularly those affecting the lungs such as tuberculosis and lung cancer, can spread rapidly. Air pollutants also hinder biological processes such as metabolism due to the lack of available essential gases such as oxygen.
With all these climate change, pollution and unavailability of resources happening at the same time, we have seen how much it has affected the biodiversity of our ecosystem. The chain of events ultimately leads to the death of a species – the change in the environment affects their habitat in which temperature and weather patterns have affected how plants grow, not to mention it changes soil quality to some extent; the unavailability of resources forces organisms to compete, and only the fittest becomes the survivor; and the pollution affects the metabolic processes of some organisms, eliciting drastic changes to their behaviors. Without biodiversity, our balance becomes disrupted: the food chain becomes convoluted that organisms which thrive from other would seek another which cannot compensate on what the original can provide, or they just wither away.
As mankind thrives from the environment, it has become our moral obligation to ensure that future generations will continue to benefit from it. It is good that we are seeing positive progress in our environment. We have been discussing signs of hope – population stabilization, reduction of life-threatening diseases, habitat conservation, emergence of renewable energy, and global cooperation towards the conservation of the environment.
There had been stabilization of birth rates in most industrialized countries. This is good as it allows us to plan resources properly – which then allows us to wisely allocate water and food to those who need it most. We have also seen improvement in relation to health, with incidence of life-threatening diseases reduced in most countries. Aside from this, our biodiversity is now slowly being maintained with habitat conservation – deforestation has slowed and habitat protection has improved in areas – encouraging life to thrive once again and restoring the biodiversity.
At the top of it all, international efforts have made in sure our environment stays the same. Nations have been working together in different projects, such as addressing climate change, wherein we see in reports that most nations have begun tackling the issue and making it at the top of their priorities; and the preservation of biodiversity through animal conservation projects and maintenance of natural reserves.
REFERENCES:
Mahr, Krista. “India and China Spar for Most Polluted Capital City.” Time, http://time.com/3644/india-china-beijing-delhi-pollution/ Accessed 07 September 2016.
Beech, Hannah. “Beijing Chokes on Record Pollution, and Even the Government Admits There’s a Problem.” Time. http://world.time.com/2013/01/14/beijing-chokes-on-record-pollution-and-even-the-government-admits-theres-a-problem/ Accessed 07 September 2016.
“25 Most Populated Countries in the World.” World Facts, http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-populated-countries-in-the-world.html Accessed 07 Septemebr 2016.
