Sustainability: FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Before I'd taken his course, I imagined sustainability as the typical "save the trees" or "don't allow oil spills" stereotype that most people think of when they think about "saving the environment". Now I realize that sustainability has a multi-faceted definition that isn't limited to just the issues covered commonly by the media. Sustainability is the responsible and efficient use of our natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable) that will preserve and protect the organic life on our world, as well as provide a place to live for generations to come. The largest threat to sustainability, in my opinion, is the misuse of resources in affluent, developed countries. With developed countries using a majority of the resources in the world already, and with all of the developing countries on the rise, soon the demand for our natural resources will exceed the planet's capacity to produce them. The overuse of these resources is also morally irresponsible due to an affluent nation's ability to spend large amounts of money to enact environmentally friendly policies. This selfish mentality may be what ultimately leads us down our path of self-destruction in the future if it is not corrected soon.



This picture of the Three Gorges Dam depicts one of many ways that humans interfere with nature in order to bring convenience to their lives. While dams create clean fuel, they also cause significant habitat damage downstream from the dam's location due to the decreased flow of water.



Before APES, I'd never thought about the ecological impact of oysters before. However as we learned, the Chesapeake Bay oyster plays a key role in water filtration and is currently struggling for survival against the Japanese oysters that were brought there by humans. Learning about the frequency that invasive species appear in environments was something that surprised me alot during the course.




The importance of developing countries in the future was also something that surprised me and made a deep impression on me. Before, I thought that the power to save or destroy the environment was in the hands of the richer, more affluent countriies, but now i realize that that power truly lies in the hands of the developing countries that are growing.