The Final Post

Sustainability is the ability of the earth's various systems to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. At the beginning of the year I somewhat took all of this for granted. I felt that the little wrapper on the ground really didn't make a difference, but after taking this class my entire mindset has changed. I see that little wrapper does make a difference and if these actions continue our earth's sustainability will be in jeopardy. The small decisions we make can have overwhelming and everlasting consequences. The world is growing at an exponential rate and the earth can only sustain a certain amount of people. That certain number of people is considered the cultural carrying capacity. With the large number of people comes the need for resources. Many of these natural resources are non-renewable and cannot be replenished as fast as they are being extracted and used. The extraction and use of the natural resources also creates another problem. This problem is pollution and the amount of pollution being released into the atmosphere is growing rapidly. Poverty also greatly affects sustainability. The majority of the world lives in poverty and people living in poverty have to make compromises in order to survive. They are unable to think green because they cannot afford it. Unfortunately the green products have far greater expenses and are fairly unavailable to the third world or developing countries.
The rate of population growth has slowed from previous years, but the world is still growing at an exponential rate of 1.22% a year. China and India together account for 36% of the world's total population. If this growth rate continues the world will eventually reach the cultural carrying capacity.
Poverty occurs when people are unable to meet their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education. In developing countries 1 of every 3 children under the age of 5 suffers from malnutrition due to poverty. Poverty can be linked to many types of environmental degradation such as population growth.

Air pollution has many environmental impacts. The excess amounts of pollutants entering the atmosphere is severely depleting the ozone layer. Throughout the year global warming has been discussed on several occasions. Our global sea levels have already began to rise and global climates are also being affected.