Learned how to fly. Check
Gone to the moon. Check
Explored the ocean floor. Check.
Wiped out the Caspian tiger population. Check.
What humans have accomplished since the day that they’ve inhabited the earth is amazing, unbelievable almost. Yet still, the thought of this huge tin can in flight, carrying tons of people and luggage still amazes me. Humans have come so far from cave drawings and stone wheels, but what is the cost the earth and the other inhabitants are paying for our luxuries and greed?
Humans, as a whole, cannot call themselves 'stewards of the world'. My favourite example ever, is the tragedy of the blue whale. The series Planet Earth by BBC had this little scene on the blue whale, and what I learned from it stuck with me. Lucky for you, I found a piece of it on Youtube! Check it out, it will make your day, I promise.
These super mammals were once a population of 300,000, today there is less than 3% of that number left. How did this happen? Humans pollute the earth, which pollutes the water. DDT that any garden tender uses eventually gets into the ocean. Krill then consumes the DDT, and the blue whales, consume the krill. Blue whales must eat about 8,000 pounds of krill a day to survive, now imagine all the DDT that ends up in their bodies. Women who breastfeed their babies dump all their chemicals they've collected over their lifetime into their infants, but unlike humans, blue whales don’t have the choice of feeding their babies formula. So clearly, one gardener can greatly impact the chance of survival of this colossal mammal.
So what are the factors that lead to the loss of biodiversity? Climate change, pollution, over exploitation and invasive species, so in nutshell, the answer is “humans”.
Humans are the most invasive species, no doubt. Let’s look at this on a larger scale. Capitalism, the arch nemesis of environmentalism, is responsible for destroying and polluting the earth. A good example is the profitable industry of oil drilling. It’s simple; oil companies go to Alaska, find oil, build their oil mines, pump the land dry, then leave the habitats destroyed which were possibly once breeding grounds or hibernation routes for polar bears and caribou. Not to mention all the air pollution released during the whole operation. Capitalism is about money and power, and will put aside social and environmental values to make as much profit as possible.
I am not saying capitalism is bad. There is nothing wrong with a graduate student, trying to open his own business. It’s the greed and carelessness of large companies that is really hurting our earth on a social and environmental matter. We humans, need to develop, we can’t stop the progression of our world just like that to focus on the environment. What is our world without development? Is it possible for development and going green to co-exist? Or is it one or another? The solution is “sustainable development”. It’s basically environmental, economic and social well being for today and tomorrow. If humans can live, and think this way, we CAN be stewards of our Earth! It’s a win-win situation, but of course it’s not that easy. It takes masterminds to try to make sustainable development work. But impossible is nothing. When cell phones were first introduced, it was like talking into a brick! And in just within a few decades, cell phones can surf the internet, play music, and take pictures while still fitting in our pockets.
As much as humans are invasive and greedy, they are as intelligent. Therefore I personally believe that humans will find a way to make sustainable energy work, and when that day comes we may be able to call ourselves stewards of the earth. But now? Not so much.
We should have a lot of respect for the system, for the natural system, for the biodiversity. Don't worry if you don't know what good they are for; you didn't create it, so you don't know what it is for. Just let it be. Because who knows, someday down the road our future generations might find that they can survive becuase of that aspect of biodiversity. - Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement (from Planet Earth)
http://www.extremescience.com/BlueWhale.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fzT6ifrhL8
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/clouding.pdf
http://www.iisd.org/sd/
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/biodiversity/
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/extinct-animals/
Planet Earth BBC series
Monday, September 21, 2009
Stewards of the earth, my arse!
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you were totally right, the video on the whales was a real eye opener on the vast majority of species there are in this world! Guilty of not being a steward to the environment,i realized that as we do things to improve or enhance our stay here on earth we only make life miserable for the rest of the species we share the world with. you brought up interesting issues like the fact that most of the harm done to the the environment has been caused humans. Even something as small as gardening can create a chain reaction in our ecosystem, an incident like this forced me to consider the amount of damage we've done over the years and look at the bigger picture
ReplyDeletehowever, you brought some hope when you talked about how we may eventually become stewards if we gave more of our attention towards the environment.
we've done some good when it comes to our own living conditions- however, i feel that we could improve the way we treat the rest of the world.
I think your entry broadened my perspective on whether humans are able to survive without inflicting harm towards the environment. One factor that you mentioned which can quite possibly be the solution to this crisis is that human are intelligent beings. Perhaps "sustainable development" can redeem the damage we've done.
ReplyDeleteAs well, the tragedy of the blue whales and all other species endangered should be enough evidence that humans are invasive! It may have seem like humans were unintelligent but truthfully, we're just too ignorant and caught up in "capitalism" (as you mentioned) to consider life beyond wealth and technology.
Tammy, you're absolutely right. Impossible is nothing. It is so unfortunate how ignorant humans are. We are so careless and pay no attention to the other species around us. We need to realize that we are sharing the Earth with many, many species and we need to understand how negatively we are affecting them. Your statistics about the blue whale blew me away! I cannot imagine how little of them there are now. What is worse is that they are not the only endangered species. There are so many other species out there that we are affecting in a negative way.
ReplyDeleteAlso, companies and businesses sometimes are really greedy and careless, I agree with you on this point as well. They do not know when enough is enough. They dump their waste into the oceans and pollute without hesitation. Humans are intelligent, but we are also lazy. Right now, I don't think we are fully realizing the consequences because the worse is yet to come. The consequences of our actions will appear eventually in the long run. Humans are intelligent but sometimes, if what we're doing seems to be working at the moment, we choose not to do anything else, because we are probably not going to be the cleaning up the mess. Unfortunately, our children and great grandchildren will be. Humans need to take action now, because sooner or later, we will reach a point when some things can never be reversed again. We have to take action and think, think of a way to rebalance life on Earth and preserve the biodiversity, for it is not only necessary for a few animals' survival, but it is also necessary for human survival.
After reading your entry, it inspired me to look up videos of how animals are all endangered now because of us; human beings. Personally, the information you gave about the whales are absolutely incredible. Like, also relating to this topic,i read in this magazine about hunters killing whales in japan and making the ocean all red due to the blood. It's devastating at how people can be so selfish and cruel.
ReplyDeleteWe should definitely look out into the world and realize how much habitats and species are becoming endangered rather than just caring about ourselves. We should really care more about the environment.
You're blog is insightful and demonstrates how humans treats our world. They aren't being stewards of the earth at all. The Youtube video that you found was interesting and gives us a look at how beautiful the endangered blue whales are. Just imaging the amount of DDT blue whales are consuming into their body scares me. Unfortunately, our future generation may not even be able to witness the beauty of these blue whales because by then, they may already be extinct. As humans, we should be thriving to protect and perserve these endangered species.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that so many species are becoming either extinct or endangered because they could've been used to save many lives through using them to make medicine. I feel that what you said in this blog expresses how I feel towards how humans have been treating our world. Humans are greedy and selfish and don't look far enough into the future to see that what they're doing are going to hurt our planet's species.
However, if humans didn't do things the way they did, then our world may be completely different. For example: Humans clear out massive amounts of land in order to build high rise buildings and relaxing resorts. If humans were to change all of this and decided not to clear out these trees, then where would all our luxuries be? Many of us complain about how so many of our species are becoming endangered, but we're acutally the ones that encourage it. If no one spends money on the resorts that are built, then do you still think that companies would clear out land to build these resorts?
The win-win situation you mentioned isn't going to come easy, but I'm sure that if we work hard towards it, then it will become reality. More of us need to spread the message of how so many species in our world are endangered. We need more people to work towards saving our planet's species, so that less of them would be endangered.
My initial thought about your blog was that it was very clever and it gave me a good amount of imformation. Good job tammy!
ReplyDeleteWhen i was the part about the whales, the first thing that came to mind was the incident with the whale and the cruise ship. It makes me realize that every little thing we do harms or puts animals in danger. It's actually unbelievable that people in the world don't know what how much damage they're doing to our world.
When you said that the whale popullation is decreasing due to pollution, It made me think about how irresponsible people are these days. Why can't people try to dispose of their garbage properly? Why can't people recycle more? Why can't people try to reduce their garbage? Do people not care about other things in the world! We are slowly killing such a beautiful mammal, the blue whale.
The worst part about all of this, is that the blue whales aren't the only animals at risk. There are so many other species at risk, and it's all our fault! All these issues aren't just going to magically disappear. Things must be done, and fast!