ENVIRO 1: Making It Personal

By Judith Green

Every choice we make affects our environment, whether it’s the car we drive or the power we use in our home. Our choices have led to global warming and the depletion of Earth’s resources.

 

Dismayed by the deteriorating state of the environment and invigorated by the teacher’s challenge to find sustainable solutions, a group of high school students spur into action. Blue, Blossom and Prizurv collaborate with their distant friend, Fawrkast, to form an organization to promote awareness and develop sustainable solutions. The students’ efforts engulf them in a struggle to reclaim their Earth.

 

Their insights and experiences from their summer vacations empower them to address environmental issues affecting water, air, soil, energy and consumer goods. With the help of Fawrkast’s unique perspective from the developing world and the students’ own experiences abroad, the group embarks on an adventure to save Earth. The heroes unite and form ENVIRO 1!

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781449039097

Book preview

ENVIRO 1

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The Environment is MY LIFE is My Responsibility

Judith Green

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Sowing the Seed

Mr. Green, the science teacher, introduced us to the topics of the environment and global warming and explained how they are affecting planet Earth. He likened it to a student living at home with his or her family. Imagine the parents living by themselves in the house and over the years they have children. If everyone continues to live in the same house, then changes will have to be made to accommodate the larger family. Whatever one family member does will affect the other members. If the family income is fixed, then the same amount of resources will have to be utilized to upkeep the family and new ways will have to be found to accommodate everyone.

So too, the home has to exist within the local community, the country community and the world community. What each home does affects other homes and the larger community. Each community forms part of the world community that inhabits the earth and therefore inevitably affect each other. The earth’s resources are like a fixed income. As more people inhabit the earth, its limited resources will have to be used in different ways to maintain everyone’s well-being and sustainability.

Mr. Green said that the earth existed from the beginning of time, and has served human beings, animals, plants and other organisms throughout the years and will exist after we are gone. Therefore, we are merely custodians of the earth during our lifetime and should try to preserve or improve its condition. It is our duty to future generations to take good care of the earth, our world. He went on to say that the earth’s population continues to increase at a fast rate. In finding ways to accommodate this increased number of people and to make improvements in our lives, humans have discovered methods to increase productivity and have engaged in trade to sell goods around the world. The use of fossil fuels in producing food, shelter and services for an ever-increasing population has resulted in the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is responsible for global warming also known as climate change.

The History of

Environmental Change

A student asked how global warming was created and how the environment reached its present deteriorating state. The student felt that the alarm about the state of the environment came to the forefront only recently.

The Middle Ages

Mr. Green said that whether you believe that life started by creation or evolution, some facts are the same for both beliefs. In the beginning Earth was rich and lush with vegetation. The oceans made up the greater part of Earth’s surface. Man shared planet Earth with every kind of creature imaginable. There was a relatively small human population living in close knit communities, who led either nomadic lives or engaged in small-scale farming and hunted for food. The environment was in tact then, and man had Earth’s resources at his disposal to manage as he saw fit. Then man navigated the oceans and crossed seas to discover unknown lands. The age of exploration started to connect communities around the globe in man’s quest to conquer more lands as national treasures. This land grab brought colonization and wars between nations to claim parts of the earth. Still there was no inherent danger to the environment, but seeds of environmental change were being sowed.

We journeyed through the Middle Ages from the 5th century to the 15th century covering the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age where people moved to towns from the country to engage in more profitable pursuits. These three periods were characterized as the technological stages. The bubonic plague of the late Middle Ages wiped out almost half of Europe’s population. The population decrease led to an economic depression as there were less people to whom goods could be sold. This was followed by a period in which the population increased once again and a new middle class emerged. Later improvements in shipbuilding aided the development of trade to find new markets for local products. As these goods were exported from Europe, spices, silk and gems were imported from Asia.

The Industrial Age

Next was the Industrial Age which had the greatest impact on the environment. The Industrial Revolution which took place in the late 18th century and early 19th century had an enormous effect on socio-economic and cultural change around the world. By the end of the 20th century industrialization or its effects had touched every corner of the world. Machinery was introduced to aid in the manufacturing and textile industry. Steam was used and it was fuelled by coal. Metal tools were introduced and more roads and rail aided the expansion of trade. Natural resources such as coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and waterpower aided the expansion of industry. The Industrial Age depended on a lot of human labour in factories unlike work on farms. There were large multi-national companies with branches spread throughout many countries. Increased population created a great demand for resources and products. Developed countries continued in a path of excessive consumption.

The Industrial Age brought a tremendous increase in the use of motor vehicles, business and leisure travel, immigration and an exponential growth in international trade. Each of these areas created an insatiable demand for energy. The main sources of energy were petroleum, coal and to a lesser extent, nuclear energy. Consumption of oil and its by-products, such as natural gas and plastic, made the producing countries of this commodity become strategically important. Most oil producing countries are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - the organization which sets the level of oil output and indirectly the price of oil. Oil producing countries have become rich from the sale of oil as it was the engine of the Industrial Age. Wealthy developed countries that didn’t have enough oil bought vast quantities from the oil producing countries to supplement their own. Developing countries also needed oil for continued development in their countries. It is the use of oil to generate energy that has contributed most to pollution and thereby global warming.

Increased global population called for ways to increase food output. To keep pace with the demand for food and the increase in the middle class who demanded higher living and consumption standards, a more efficient way of producing crops with minimal increase in land use became an issue. The remedy for this problem was the widespread use of herbicides and pesticides to increase crop yields. Developing new varieties and species of plants and animals by crossbreeding coupled with the use of improved farm equipment helped to produce greater output. Like oil as a solution for energy, pesticides as a solution for food increase brought their own negative effects to the environment. Pesticides used for controlling crop damage and destruction by insects and weeds brought air and water pollution causing direct related health issues.

There was a massive increase in development throughout the world as developed countries not only consumed the products they made, but traded these goods amongst themselves, their colonies and developing countries. To increase the level of production meant additional minerals had to be extracted from the earth. Farms became bigger requiring more land use and this led to encroachment onto forests as they were pushed further and further back. Forests were cut down to provide land for habitation, to use in building construction, and to satisfy increased use of paper products. These practices meant that we were also reducing the amount of land used by other species of the earth while simultaneously reducing the amount of oxygen produced by trees leading to more greenhouse gases. The shifting balance in the ecological system was becoming quite evident.

The Computer Age

Next followed the Computer Age or Information Age where computers and electronic machines played important roles in our daily lives. The Information Age gave the ability to transfer information freely and to have instant access to knowledge that would have previously been difficult or impossible to find. It was a shift from traditional industry to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The Information Age began around 1980 with the Internet being a key part of this change. With the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989, the Internet became a global network. The Internet is the vehicle that allows the fast flow of information and is the fastest growing form of media. Today, improved smaller personal computers are widely used in businesses, schools and in government offices resulting in greater efficiency. Much greater volumes of data can be stored and more complex and numerous functions can be calculated in significantly less time and with a higher degree of accuracy.

To some extent, computers have replaced jobs previously done by people. In many cases though, computers have created whole new fields of work as the labour force shifted from being more blue-collar to more white-collar or service-oriented work. Electronics have touched almost every aspect of our lives; they are responsible for advanced communication systems and the world is more connected now than ever before. Cell phones have allowed developing countries to bypass the extensive and expensive infrastructure required for telephone land lines and keep those countries abreast of worldwide communication privileges.

Computers were upgraded continually with new-generation products always evolving. These frequent innovations in technology caused a high turnover of products which had to be discarded. The entertainment industry underwent remarkable change in the technological age which created other issues related to piracy, licensing and copyright. Innovation created the demand for new machines to play music, watch videos and play games. Televisions went through significant transformation. They became less bulky, while undergoing improvements in picture quality, array of channels to choose from and less we forget, colour. Remember, televisions have gone from black and white to full spectrum pictures.

The 3Rs

Improved technological products which became accessible to worldwide consumers, dramatically increased in numbers creating an unsustainable demand for energy from current sources. Replaced products were discarded directly into landfills. Landfills were rapidly filling up with solid waste disposal and this resulted in the introduction of recycling programs by local municipalities, whereby waste was separated by homeowners. Landfills created environmental hazards due to the toxic waste in them. The toxic waste was emitted into surrounding water sources and in the air, causing health problems for those people living near the landfill sites. New businesses engaging in the export of used goods to developing countries were started to help combat the problem. These used products were sold in the developing countries either whole or stripped and sold as parts. The recipient country was then left with the burden of disposing the end use product in places where waste management was not fully developed and enforced. It soon became apparent that a solution was needed for the global problem of discarding waste, especially toxic waste, in ways that minimize the effects to health and the environment. The advent of the three Rs relating to the environment, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle soon became familiar and commonly practiced. These initiatives helped to address the problems as they were instituted in the local communities’ by-laws in many developed countries. Waste programs were established so that much less waste ended up in landfills

Excessive Consumption

Meanwhile, the world population continued to increase rapidly with developing countries accounting for most of the world’s population. The Industrial Age had brought with it a population shift which has continued ever since. The shift brought many people from the villages and farms to cities in search of work, thereby creating large congested cities. Due to insufficient