The first chapter of earth was very concerning for me. I am a fan
of being outside in nature and have noticed some of these changes but not on
the scale that the chapter promotes. As I went through the chapter I was demoralized
by the one simple fact that, this is all our fault. Plain and simply put, the environment
is the way it is because of human beings. The radical changes in such a short
period of time have all seem to come from one central principle, the growth of
technology.
Technology and the industrialization
of our world is the main beneficiary to the exponential decline to our planet.
Humans are incredibly intelligent but seem to overlook our environment in the eye
wealth and convince. When it comes to technology, people can make some
incredible things that can help feed the world, like artificial fertilizers.
Which at the first, when we see the big picture that we could feed the world
more efficiently, it seems like a great idea. Though the problem is we as
humans can jump to conclusions rather quickly, without seeing the whole
picture. Sometimes we don’t think things through the whole way, which in this
case, what might be the future outcome of artificial fertilizers. Also sometimes
in the wake of profit, the future problems, don’t seems so bad. Yet that is the
issue, ignorance created by greed might just be the big issue that pushes us as
humans to destroy our planet.
The scare thought is that even
though we have all of these incredible minds that can produce amazing technology
to better the world, it might be too late to reverse what has already been
done. That is the scary part to me. We as humans must now have to evolve how we
live on our planet because of the things we did to it, and there might not be any
way to go back to that equilibrium that our planet once was at. It was our doing that put the planet where it is, now its our responsibility to take care of what we did to our one and only home.
I definitely agree that it's our responsibility to make a change in our habits. We may not reverse the effects immediately, or even in hundreds of years, but we should do our part to make things better.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(Not really sure what happened with my first comment) I agree that we seem to get caught up in to all. We fail to see the bigger picture or the impact that our actions might have in the grand scheme of things. It seems like greed is the cause of many of the problems that we are encountering today, especially in relation to climate change. We want bigger, we want better, we want more, and all at the expense of the well being of the Earth.
ReplyDeleteHuman's are the cause of this problem, but I don't believe that anyone is to blame for it. Science is always evolving and as the industrial revolution took place we didn't know about the negative environmental effects that were taking place. And even when this book was written the idea of global warming was greatly debated. You may argue that it was greed that inspired people to deny the truth of the problem, but science takes time. Theories have to be tested and proven, data has to be compared and verified.
ReplyDeleteEven in recent years as climate change has become a proven reality, many people remain uneducated on the topic. Additionally, the vast majority of people have no idea how they should be modifying their behavior or even if any change is necessary. Even if society commits to changing there will be a long and drawn out transitional period as we change our way of life. The Earth will suffer from climate change and humans along with it, but it will recover.
The images on your post are powerful. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our civilization does tend to only look at the big picture many times before jumping in feet first. However, in the case of global warming, I feel like there were no red flags when the industrial revolution started. Since this is the first time we have faced this situation we are going in blind; as the book stated until very recently the experts believed we were a long way from the point of no return. I do believe we need to start being held responsible for our actions from this time on though.
ReplyDeleteI think what you said about how humans have to evolve is extremely accurate. McKibben touches on this a lot in the first chapter by saying that this is the "new normal." That's a scary thought.
ReplyDeleteIt's important that you point out how intelligent humans are because we are! But it is definitely interesting that we can come up with all of this technology and advance ourselves so far, but some can't grasp the idea of how important it is to acknowledge we're in trouble and that we need to find solutions to climate change immediately.
ReplyDeleteI love the first picture of the earth depicted as either a wonderful blue planet with plants and animals and then as a smog filled industrial wasteland on the other side. I wonder what side we are on in this image? Coming into this class I would've told you that we are on the better side but getting closer to the nasty wasteland on the left. I can't believe we let this issue broadside us.
ReplyDeletesok`mooefofkefergjrgdjrghkdurjguñjdofksiodgijirjjudpàññshjritgjkrrr
ReplyDelete