Daily Archives: September 6, 2018
Human Extinction !?
Before discovering the wonderful world of Political Science, I had always found myself looking at things in a more pragmatic way than others. I’ve grown to understand that sustainability means more than just maintaining a balanced rate of our resources, to avoid depletion for our future generations. I now know that sustainability is bigger than the human existence and that we should work to not only sustain our resources but find renewable alternatives to them as well. In doing so, we take a step back to remember that we share these valuable resources with all other living beings on Earth, and that life will exist long after human extinction. I believe that we should think sustainably beyond our natural resources, but also to our fellow species that inhabit this beautiful planet that we all share. There is much conversation on how to sustain human life on Earth, though I believe we should use our knowledge to sustain all life on Earth, even after the human race is gone.
Sustainability Blog #1
From spending summers in Beijing, to months in Australia and New Zealand my view on what sustainability means has drastically changed. To me, sustainability is defined as something that can be managed and maintained over time at a controlled rate. In the context of environmental climate change, and with this definition, clearly climate change has not been environmentally sustained. The New York Times published an article, Pollution May Dim Thinking Skills, which emphasizes how the world is not sustainably maintaining the environment. The results of this longitudinal study suggest that pollution can negatively influence people’s language production, processing, math skills, and increased risk for Alzheimer’s and respiratory disease. China’s carbon dioxide emissions have increased over the previous year, even though the country has been setting climate change goals. At this rate of pollution, scientists predict that by the year 2030, about 75.6 million people will suffer from Dementia. The goal of this study is to increase awareness about the negative effects of climate change and to prevent developing and developed countries from increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Individuals should reflect and take a step back and track their carbon footprint – such as are there places where you drive, and should walk instead? What temperature do you keep your air conditioner on?
Blog #1
As an Environmental Policy major and environmentalist I am extremely passionate about how the preserve the benefits that our natural world provides for us. So far what that has meant to me is educating myself and others in the best way I know: talking. Communication across all different interest groups and demographics is an integral and unavoidable step in the fight against climate change but it also tends to be one of the largest barriers that exists in our world today. Not only in cultural and economic instances but also in political and academic instances, communication about climate change needs to be more inclusive and cohesive. My personal motivation for taking this class is to learn skills and techniques to make me a more well-rounded environmentalist so I have the ability to connect people through knowledge.