It's All About Sustainability

Before taking AP Environmental Science, I was aware that we are in the process of degrading and polluting our earth. Also, I knew it was a result from harmful human activities from the past and from those that continue to remain in progress. After completing a year APES and learning details of the situation, I now realize how passive and blind I was to the seriousness of the toll the earth has taken due to our actions. We have discussed a wide range of factors that negatively affect our plant and the natural processes it provides. Sustainability needs to be kept in mind by all. The hope is that humans will accommodate a sustainable lifestyle, this being a positive step towards turning around our planet’s future. Sustainability is the ability of the earth’s various systems to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. Sustainable living is taking no more potentially renewable resources from the natural world than can be replenished naturally and not overloading the capacity of the environment to cleanse and renew itself by natural processes. There are many issues that prevent us from living sustainably. The issues that I feel impact sustainability the most are population growth, poverty, and the overuse/wasteful resource use. The number of people on our earth is expected to increase from 6.7 to 9.3 billion by 2050. With the world’s population growing so steadily, it is a negative set back in efforts of sustainability. While trying to survive and provide resources for a large population that is still growing we have modified, cultivated, built on, and degraded a large and increasing portion of the earth’s natural systems. We have directly affected about 83% of the earth’s land surface. As the total population continues to grow, there are more people that need resources. This not only puts a greater strain and need on our already depleted resources, but it is one of the causes of another issue that negatively impacts sustainability: poverty. Poverty takes place when people are unable to meet their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education. Those who are poverty stricken are desperate for short-term survival, some of these people degrade and deplete forests, soil, grasslands, fisheries, and wildlife, and an ever-increasing rate. They do not have the luxury of worrying about the long-term effects on the environment or about sustainability. The degradation and wasteful use of resources sets us back from living sustainably. The lifestyles of many affluent consumers in developed countries and in rapidly developing countries are built on high levels of consumption and unnecessary waste of recourses. Because of having easy access to resources, things are often not considered as valuable and are taken advantage of because it is easy to have things replaced. The average American citizen consumes about 100 times as much as the average person in the world’s poorest countries. All the negative factors against sustainability have a domino effect on each other. Poverty increases the population. More people, using more resources, causes poverty because there is not enough circulating for everyone to have access to. When there are people that overuse resources, we limit the availability of products to people who really need them, which increases poverty. Individually, each factor is something that sets back living sustainably, but when they are all combined; they have an even larger negative toll on sustainability and our planet.

Poverty is a global issue. Over half of the people living on our earth are trying to live on the equivalent of less than two dollars a day. Hearing this, it is overwhelming to know that there are people dying because they can not get enough food, when many of us (including myself) throw away leftovers and stuff that we do not want every day. Poverty is something that needs to be addressed and is a problem I want to help resolve.

It takes about 27 tractor-trailer loads of resources per year to support one American. It takes 7.9 billion truck loads a year to support the entire U.S. population. The United States has fewer people than India but, the average American consumes about 30 times as much as the average citizen of India and 100 times as much as a person in the world's poorest countries. All these statistics really make it clear how much we over consume. It is sad to think that we spend and waste so much and in the meantime there are people dying because they do not have the basic things they need to survive like water.

Water pollution is something that has become a major problem around the world. All the excess trash and items that can not be recycled are often thrown away or disposed into our waterways. This unnatural disposal is killing many different species that need clean water to live. Not only are we hurting the environment but, we are slowly killing ourselves. If we drink the dirty water or eat the animals that have consumed the toxins in the water, they are going to indirectly enter our body. We need to use materials that can be recycled and reused. This is one step that will help prevent future water pollution.

---------- TAYLOR NEUBURG