Essay on "Global Environment Continue to Deteriorate?"

Essay 8 pages (2723 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Other wildlife negatively affected by the spill include: a) "as many as 25,900 marine mammals may have been harmed" (bottlenose dolphins, spinner dolphins, melon-headed whales and sperm whales); b) an unknown number of fishes (the spill occurred during the peak spawning months for the bluefin tuna); c) an unknown number of invertebrates (lobsters, crabs, oysters, clams, starfish and sand-dwelling organisms); and d) terrestrial mammals (tarballs that washed up on the beaches threatened terrestrial mammals like beach mice, etc.).

As if oil spills and acidification aren't challenging enough to the world's oceans, the recent tsunami in Japan caused a nuclear meltdown, which in turn caused highly radioactive water to spill into the Pacific Ocean. The University of West Florida Marine Ecology Research Society reports that cesium-137, one of the radioactive isotopes associated with the Japanese nuclear reactor's leakage, along with potassium and strontium-90, have been found in high levels along the west coast of Japan.

When microscopic sea organisms like plankton and other organisms are contaminated, which they will be from the radiation, then larger species eat those organisms, one can see that the danger of going up the food chain is very real. What is not known at this time is how deeply the marine ecology will be affected by the radiation, but it certainly can't be good, and it most certainly will contribute at least in a small way to the continuing deterioration of the planet.

Global climate change -- The biggest threat to the planet, people, and wildlife

As to global climate change, the most respected research that has been done regarding the heating up of the planet has been carried out by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has been doing empirical research on climate change for over twenty years, using the best scientific minds from 194 nations worldwide. The evidence from the IPCC research shows that "eleven of the last twelve years" rank among the "warmest years" since 1850. Sea levels have risen about 3.1mm since 1993, and sea ice is melting at a rate close to 3% per decade; mountain glaciers are simply disappearing; "hot days and hot nights" have become quite frequent even in colder climates; "heat waves" and "intense tropical cyclone activity" have increased (IPCC). Moreover, spring is arriving earlier in many parts of the planet, which disrupts wildlife and alters planting seasons for agriculture.

The possibility of human health being affected by climate change is also very real, according to the IPCC; that is, infectious diseases could become more widespread due to the warming of the planet.

Scholarly Literature on the deterioration of the planet

Professor Roger S. Gottlieb asks highly pertinent questions at the start of his scholarly article in the journal Worldviews: "Why are we awash in pesticides… Why…do we live in an environmental crisis?" He answers his own questions: "Because… there is something fundamentally amiss in the depths of our society, our culture, and our civilization" (Gottlieb, 2004, p. 377). The author goes on to suggest that society suffers "…from a misguided economy, the shortsighted self-interest of governments, our own addiction to consumption, and the deep and destructive flaws that mark how we think about who we are and what it is to be alive on this earth."

It would be hard to imagine any scholar hitting the nail in the head with any more accuracy than Gottlieb when he adds, "We have mistakenly taken humanity to the only species of value" (p. 378). He may also be correct when he asserts that the way teachers and professors approach environmental education is flawed, and "too often" it leaves students "unmoved" (p. 378). But what are his ideas for creating excitement in his classes? He offers eight premises as guidelines as to how he arouses interest from students. One, the environmental crisis is "so universal and threatening" that it "inevitably provokes strong emotions" (hence, the "prospects of environmental deterioration simply do darken the horizon of young people"). Two, spiritual resources are required to meet "the emotional challenge" of the environmental crisis. Three and four, students have bodies and they need to learn to experience the world "intuitively"; five, no "single discipline is adequate to the complexity of the environmental crisis" (Gottlieb, p. 387). Number six emphasizes the need for critical thought and number seven invokes the fact that the environmental crisis "is a desecration of the holy" as much as economics or health, Gottlieb continues. Number eight: "Students exist as moral beings in a morally complex world" (p. 389).

One of the challenges for scientists, sociologists, political and religious leaders and others is to help education people in the third world about the crisis society faces. For example, in Ghana, 90% of high forest has been logged and there are: a) poor farming practices; b) human and industrial wastes are simply dumped into rivers and lakes; c) surface mining rips apart the ecosystems; d) "most surface water resources" are polluted; e) some fishermen actually use DDT "thereby endangering many aquatic lives"; and d) "an appreciable number of children die annually before the age of five" from preventable sanitation-related diseases" (Awuah-Nyamekye, 2009, pp. 256-57). What is the author's best idea for a solution? He believes that the "indigenous religion and culture" of native peoples must become environmental activists.

Conclusion

This paper was not intended as a pathway to solutions for the world's environmental crisis, but clearly leadership in every corner of the world must do something universally meaningful in order to slow down the destructive onrushing environmental collapse. The answer unfortunately is yes when this question is posed: will there continue to witness the deterioration of the world's environment? Part of the reason the deterioration will continue is due to the global climate change; part is due to the search for oil that ultimately leads to disastrous spills; part is due to human indifference and ignorance; part is due to effective propaganda by right wing personalities in the media; and part is due to what professor Gottlieb terms "a misguided economy," the "short-sighted self-interest of governments," and "our own addiction to consumption" (Gottelib, p. 377).

Works Cited

Awuah-Nyamekye, Samuel. (2009). Salvaging Nature: the Akan Religio-Cultural Perspective.

Worldviews, Vol. 13, 251-282.

Center for Biological Diversity. (2011). Deepwater Horizon still taking "deadly toll" on Gulf

Wildlife. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from http://ww4report.com/node/9797.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2004). Earth 101. Worldviews, 8(2-3), 377-393.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). The United Nations. Retrieved May 15,

2011, from http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms1.html.

Natural Resources Defense Council. (2011). Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem.

Retrieved May 14, 2011, from http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/acidification/default.asp.

Obama, Barack. (2011). President Obama Announces Team to 'Root Out Any Cases of Fraud

or Manipulation in the Oil Markets. The White House Blog. Retrieved May 13, 2011, from http://m.whitehouse.gov.

Schwartz, Kate. (2011). Obama OKs More Drilling in Alaska, Offshore. Newser. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from http://www.newser.com.

Speaks, Justin. (2011). How Will Japan's Nuclear Disaster Affect our Oceans? University of West Florida Marine Ecology Research Society. Retrieved May… READ MORE

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