rayniandtheenvironment

[rayniandtheenvironment]

The World’s Population, Economy and the Environment

In today’s blog we will be talking about the world’s population, its effects on the environment and society and about different factors that affect its growth. To begin, I will say that the world is overpopulated with a little more than 7 billion people. Having this large population has negative impacts, since it means more people consuming natural resources and polluting the environment, besides all the people living with hunger. Based on scientists, the exponential growth of the human population is unsustainable because the more people there are, the more the economy grows, which increases our ecological footprints (Miller and Spoolman 109). I would like to remind you what is an ecological footprint, this term refers to the environmental impact that each of us have on the environment. Something to take into account is that the larger the population is, more resources are commercialized, which increases the economic growth. This has a logical explanation, which is that the more people in the world, the more goods bought and needed, causing with this an exploitation of natural resources. The population is still increasing, which means that if we are living in an unsustainable way with 7 billion, our unsustainable lifestyle will become even worse for the environment. An important factor on the natural resources’ depletion is the distribution of the population growth, where the 96% of the new arrivals occur in less-developed countries (Miller and Spoolman 110). All these births happening in less-developed countries is a problem at some extent since some of these countries have less resources to maintain their population and different social and environmental issues. When talking about the social issues, for no one is a secret that these countries suffer from corruption, low amount of job opportunities, education, and a low economy. All the factors mentioned before affect the children development and makes it difficult to obtain basic nutrients since a lot of people do not have enough money to have an adequate nutrition. When talking about environmental issues, this might include droughts and natural resources, which affect food production in these countries.

One factor that has increased the world’s population is the decrease of the death rate. Some of the causes of our decreasing death rate might be the development of a better healthcare system and development of new technologies. As mentioned before the increasing of the population is negative for the environment, but also the mentality some people have about our life-support system and our manage of it. Some analysts argue that “there are few, if any, limits to human population growth and resource use per person. They believe that we can continue increasing economic growth and avoid serious damage to our life-support system by making technological advances in areas such as food production and medicine, and by finding substitutes for resources that we are depleting. They see no need to slow the world’s population growth or resources consumption” (Miller and Spoolman 111). As mentioned, we do not have limits, we do not know what is that when talking about resources or the environment because we just think about our well-being. There are still people who believe that we can replace our natural support-system or resources, which we have seen fail before. A few chapters ago, we saw a case study where some scientists tried to replace environmental functions by creating an artificial ecosystem, which ended up in disaster since all the plants died. This experiment is just one of the many proves that even if we wanted to, we could never replace the environment and what it offers to us. This made me think a lot about how many scientists spend money and resources doing these experiments instead of using those resources on saving the environment or looking for eco-friendly solutions to environmental issues. The same people that believe that we can replace the environment, also think that we do not need to change the way we use and consume resources, which in fact should be changed. The way we consume some resources create scarcity because we use them carelessly, which increases the impact we have on the environment and with that our footprints.

The abuse of resources is also related to the misdistribution of resources and how there is a lot of people from less-developed countries living in hunger. The number of resources is also connected to the number of births, maybe because of lack of money to buy contraceptives or the lack of education. Factors as education and economy are important because they affect the total fertility rate, which means the average number of children born when women are in their childbearing age (Miller and Spoolman 112). Education is an essential factor since it has been proved that total fertility rates decrease when women have accesses to education, while those without this opportunity usually have 2 or more children (Miller and Spoolman 115).  More educated women usually have less kinds since they are focused on their careers and future instead of being a mother or raising a child. On the other hand, women without education usually are housewives and commit their lives to have and take care of the children, which is why they end up having more kids. The level of education and number of resources can be something that explains the large amount of children since Africa is the world’s poorest continent but it has a total rate of fertility of 4.6 (Miller and Spoolman 112). Many people in Africa do not have enough resources or accesses to education, which ends up with them raising children to help them on the economic basis and taking care of their younger siblings. Something to keep in mind is that this book was written in 2018 and based on the information they predicted 2 more billion by 2050. This prediction made me think about Covid-19 since a lot of people died during the pandemic, which at some point might have helped with the overpopulation and the environment. But something to also keep in mind is that there were a lot of people getting pregnant too, I remember thinking that it was kind of funny since anywhere you looked there was someone pregnant. My point with this is that these statistics might have changed thanks to Covid.

Do you think that it would be possible for the total fertility rate to decrease by making education more accessible and with a better distribution of resources?

Word count: 1070

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

Image from:

Macquarie University. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/why-has-the-world-population-grown-so-much-in-the-past-century. 

Extinction and Its Causes

In today’s blog we will be talking about extinction, its causes and the role invasive species play on them. I will begin by explaining what extinction is, extinction occurs when species are not able to adapt to the new environmental conditions or is not able to reproduce itself, which ends up preventing them from existing. Extinction has always happened throughout history, but it uses to happen in lower rates, or the natural extinction rate referred as background extinction rate, which would be 1 specie for every 1 million per year (Miller and Solman 176). One specie a year from every 1 million sound really low, which is good for biodiversity and sustainability since every organism plays a role on the environment, even when we do not know their function. The problem comes when this rate is altered and many species start disappearing at the same time, which is called a mass extinction. As mentioned before in other blogs, the extinction of one specie leads to the extinction of different species. Some animals get their nutrients from one or more species, animals who only depends on one specie are more likely to disappear if the specie they get their nutrients of reach extinction.  What happens is that depending on just one specie for survival leaves some animals in a vulnerable position since when it goes extinct, they will not have what to eat. Extinction also affects those animals that get nutrients from different species since if one of those species disappear, they would have to rely on the other(s), which might end up endangering them as well.

Something important to keep in mind is that we have only identified 2 million of the 100 million possible species of the world, and the restricted knowledge we have about their ecological roles (Miller and Solman 177).  Some people might think that some species’ extinction will not harm the environment, but since we do not know what they do for the environment and other species, it could be something dreadful for biodiversity and other environmental services.  In fact, saving many species as possible is something that might increase out beneficial environment impact and help our economies (Miller and Solman 177). We cause so much harm to the environment with our activities that the less we could do is help the environment to be okay and to save some species that at the end are beneficial for us. Now I will introduce the terms endangered and threatened species, where an “endangered species has so few individual survivors that the species could soon become extinct.  A threatened species has enough remaining individuals to survive in the short term, but because of declining numbers, it is likely to become endangered in the near future” (Miller and Solman 178). These terms are important to know since threatened species can recover themselves and stop being one, while the endangered ones are more likely to disappear. An example of a key species that could get extinct thanks to our activities are the orangutans since we affect their habitats by cutting down trees to grow oil palms (Miller and Solman 179). Here we see how we are willing to endanger species just to produce commercialized goods and to help our economies grow. What these people or companies are not considering is that “The dispersal of fruit and plant seeds in their wastes throughout their tropical rain forest habitat is an important ecosystem service. If orangutans disappear, many rain forest plants and some of the animals that consume them may become threatened” (Miller and Solman 180). The orangutan is the perfect example of how the extinction of one specie can affect the entire ecosystem they live in and organism that surround them. If orangutans do not spread plants’ seeds, these plants might not grow in multiple areas, which might affect the plants’ accessibility to species that get their nutrients from them. This is also one of the many examples of how our actions and intervention in different ecosystems cause extinction and the environment degradation.

Human intervention can be dangerous for many species since it affects species’ ecosystem and endanger their lives. An example of this could be habitat fragmentation, which occurs when an habitat is divided into smaller ones, making species more vulnerable to predators, diseases and catastrophic events (Miller and Solman 183). Habit fragmentation can prevent some species from reproducing and endanger, which might cause a drop on their population. Also dividing a habitat, which could make them more accessible to predators and natural disaster. Now we will talk about invasive species, which is a term used to refer to non-native species. These species are usually introduced by human activities and while some of them can have positive effects, they can also harm a stable ecosystem. The problem with this species occurs when they do not have predators or competitors since it allows them to reproduce as much as they want and keeps their population growing (Miller and Solman 183). This can be something dangerous for native species since they might have to compete for food, which might decrease the native species’ population and sometimes even become them into preys. Having to compete for food is something that might shorten the resources and endanger more that one specie, since now there are more demand for a specific animal or plant. The demand specific plants or animal species might threaten or endanger their existence and the existence of the native specie because of the lack of accessibility to food and lack of time to adapt a changing environment.

Do you think we should spend more money and resources to try to save biodiversity and why?

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

Word count: 943

Image from:

ThoughtCo. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://www.thoughtco.com/reasons-animals-go-extinct-3889931.

Agriculture’s Negative Effects

In today’s blog we will be talking about agriculture, food production, consumption, and its environmental and health effects. Before the reading I never thought that agriculture had negative effects in the environment or how the lack of enough or healthy food can impact people’s health. I will start by explaining how agriculture can cause negative impacts in the environment, this could happen through different methods used for agriculture. An example of this is tilling, a method in which the soil is plowed and smoothed so it can be planted, this breaks and leaves topsoil exposed to erosion (Miller and Spoolman 261).  This method is done so weeds and residues from previous crops stay under the soil to plant new crops. Besides causing erosion, this method also releases carbon dioxide when the soil is plowed, which is the principal cause of climate change. Plowing the soil is not the only way in which this process releases carbon dioxide, this also happens because of the usage of tractors and other equipment. On another hand, there are more eco-friendly methods, such as no-till farming, which consists of planting crops with the residues of previous ones and helps prevent soil erosion. Also, something to take into account is that “We degrade soils when we plant crops such as corn and cotton on the same land several years in a row, a practice that can deplete nutrients—especially nitrogen—in the top-soil” (Miller and Spoolman 287). It is important for farmers to consider this information before planting since considering what crops have been planted in a specific area before could prevent the damage of a huge amount of soil. The unconsidered and neglect use of soil causes its depletion, which eventually affects food production since we have less nutrients in the soil and areas to plant the crops.

When we talk about food production it is almost inevitable to talk about food consumption and the negative effects of the lack of nutrients. In fact, it is produced more than enough food for everyone and besides this there are about 815 million people not getting enough food ((Miller and Spoolman 262). This is because of poverty and the bad distribution and access of food around the world. Having access to healthy and nutritious food is called food security while not having access to this kind of food or food at all is called food insecurity. Food insecurity is something that affects health since the people not having enough access to food are usually starving or not having an adequate diet. An inadequate diet or starvation means not getting the nutrients that your body needs, which could cause health problems such as diabetes, several diseases, and conditions. For example, the lack of iodine affects growth, cause retardation and goiter, a condition caused by a swollen thyroid gland that could lead to deafness (Miller and Spoolman 263). Goiter is just one examples of conditions caused by the lack some vitamins and nutrients, another example could be the lack of iron which is the cause of anemia. Conditions like this and the lack of other vitamins such as vitamin A are the cause of thousands of deaths and maldevelopment of children every year.

Now we will talk about some methods that we could use to solve these and many other problems. A solution for the Vitamin A problem could be adding vitamin A to salt which would save thousands of lives and just cost 2-3 cents per person a year (Miller and Spoolman 263). Another problem caused by agriculture and other human activities is soil desertification, which happens because of climate change and droughts. This problem could be reduced by reducing overgrazing, deforestation, destructive planting, and excessive irrigation (Miller and Spoolman 287). On the other hand, the erosion caused by tilling could be prevented by using no-tilling as mentioned before. Another way to help the environment is being aware of what we are planting because as mentioned before some crops destroy topsoil when they have been planted in the same area for several years. When talking about sustainability a good solution would be polyculture, since it needs less resources and is more effective than monoculture. It has been proved that low inputs of poly culture have better results than high inputs of monoculture and that plots with 16 species of plants out produce plots with less or just one specie (Miller and Spoolman 267). Poly culture would be a good way to maintain agriculture more sustainable since it would produce more food with less resources. Reducing the use of resources such as pesticides and not to worrying about weeds might help decrease the cost of food, which would make it more affordable to low-income individuals.  

Do you think these solutions could actually decrease the environmental impact of agriculture?

Word count: 799

Image from:

Tenton. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://www.tetonwatersranch.com/blogs/news/grass-feducation-the-beef-on-tilling.

The Risks and Spread of Diseases

In today's blog we will be talking about health risks, hazards, viruses and how climate change plays a role in spreading infectious diseases. I will start by explaining what a risk is, the term risk refers to the probability of suffering harm from or caused by different factors. in this context, we will be talking about the risks and harms caused to our health. Throughout the reading, it was explained that scientists use different methods to calculate the risks we are exposed to and the chances we have of getting specific health issues. An example of this could be cancer, which most of the times is related to some daily activities such as smoking. In addition, scientists use statistics to determine the percentage of people's chances of getting health issues thanks to these risks or practices. Now I will talk a little more about how they estimate these risks and try to lower them, for this, scientists use risk assessment and risk management. Risk assessment estimates through statistical methods the harm some factors or hazards can cause to human health or the environment, while risk management basically involves deciding and questioning if these activities are worth the risk and if not, how to reduce them (Miller and Spoolman 409).

As humans, we take risks every day, which expose us to different hazards. One of these risks could be biological hazards caused by pathogens, which refers to microorganisms, such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites that cause multiple diseases (Miller and Spoolman 409). As commonly known, these pathogens are related to many infectious or transmissible diseases that cause the deaths of thousands of people a year. Some of you might be thinking, how is this related to the environment? It was something that I could not understand either, but then the reading explained the role of climate change in spreading these diseases. Climate change is related to the spread of this diseases since “many scientists warn that warmer temperatures will likely allow some infectious diseases – specially those spread by mosquitoes and ticks that breed more rapidly in warmer climates” (Miller and Spoolman 410). As mentioned before these pathogens are transmissible and some of them can be transmitted by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, as most insects, die or are less common in winter and cold weather, but since climate change is raising the temperatures, they can spread diseases even more. The increase in the spread of mosquitoes’ related diseases, such as “West Nile virus, Zika virus, and yellow fever” (Miller and Spoolman 410), spread easier since hot weather lasts more, which gives insects the opportunity to reproduce and keep transmitting diseases to other organisms. This is also connected to the concern of mental issues in newborns since pregnant women with viruses tend to pass it to the fetuses, which can affect their brain development (Miller and Spoolman 414).  While I was reading, it was mentioned that the “mosquito species that spreads Zika is widespread in Latin America and, by 2016, had been found in 30 U.S. states, most of them warmer southern states” (Miller and Spoolman 414). The mentioned of Latin America and the year 2016, reminded me to my home country, the Dominican Republic since in 2016 Zika was really common around there and was causing a lot of deaths.

To understand more about the spread of some diseases is necessary to learn more about what is a bacteria and virus. As mentioned in the reading, “Bacteria are single-cell organisms that are found everywhere and that can multiply rapidly on their own [...]A virus is a pathogen that invades a cell and takes over its genetic machinery to copy itself and spread through-

out the body (Miller and Spoolman 410). As seen here, bacteria and viruses work in a different way, which means that they must be usually treated with different methods. A common method uses to treat bacteria is antibiotics, but just like insects create resistance to pesticides, bacteria create resistance and immunity to antibiotics. There are many reasons why bacteria are or could be developing an immunity to antibiotics and the methods used to treat them. One example of this, which could be promoting “genetic resistance is the overuse of antibiotics for colds, flu, and sore throats, many of which are caused by viruses that do not respond to treatment with antibiotics” (Miller and Spoolman 411). The overuse of chemicals and medicine usually creates a resistance thanks to natural selection, which allows stronger individuals, in this case bacteria to reproduce and pass down the immunity their antibiotics. Also, the accessibility of these antibiotic is something that collaborates to the bacteria’s exposure to it, and since it is not constant, they have the opportunity to recover from it an create resistance.

Do you think that making antibiotics less accessible could be a potential solution or method to prevent bacteria resistance?

Word count: 807

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

Image from: 

Microbe Notes. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://microbenotes.com/differences-between-bacteria-and-virus/.

The Importance and Abuse of Water Resources

In today’s blog, we will talk about water resources, their usage, and how we abuse them. It is not a secret that every single one of us needs water in our daily life. Water is used for different purposes such as drinking, cooking, growing crops, cleaning, and showering, just to mention a few. The problem comes when we abuse this renewable source since water does not just support our needs, but it helps the environment in several ways. Water determines climate change, it dilutes and removes pollutants and wastes produced by human activities (Miller and Spoolman 301). Since water helps to clean the wastes and pollutants that we produce a shortage on water by a poorly manage of it causes droughts that might increase pollution.  The shortage on water is something that will not just increase pollution but also decrease our life’s quality since we need water for every aspect of our lives.

Water is just as important as oxygen because just like you cannot live without oxygen, you cannot live without water. Water is more needed than food since people live several weeks without food but not more than a few days without water, also there is no substitute for water because it maintains us alive (Miller and Spoolman 301). Water composes more than half of the percentage of our body and that is why water is so important for our survival. Even though water is more necessary than food to keep us alive it is also key to produce crops since they need to be irrigated to grow. Based on the statistics 70% of the freshwater we use a year is to grow crops, industries use 20% and the 10% left is for our daily use (Miller and Spoolman 303).  Most of the water we take from lakes, rivers and aquifers is used to irrigate but because of the poor manage and over usage, it ends up causing soil erosion and desertification, which affects crop production and the economy. To maintain economy stable it is necessary to have goods to sell and if crop production decays, economy does too, and the prices raise. Since too much irrigation and over usage of water affects crop production by depleting the soil, it leaves us with less areas to cultivate, which makes food production harder and causes an unstable economy. On the other hand, our activities are also related to fish population since thanks to our activities and pollution caused by this, the water quality decays, which reduces fish population and causes aquatic species extinction (Miller and Spoolman 302). This is not just about fish population, its impact on the economy or our poor management of water, it is also about how we are affecting different species such as sea turtles. I have talked about this in my other blogs, but I will mention it again, we are littering the oceans (other bodies of water, too) with plastic and other materials, which hurt and suffocate sea turtles. Aquatic ecosystems and what our actions are doing to them should be something to reflect on since they are causing the extinction of sea turtles, fishes, and other non-aquatic species as well.

I have heard in the last few years that changing your phone every time a new one gets on the market was bad for the environment, but I did not quite understand why.  I mean I thought it was because of the materials needed to produce them, which I think play a huge role on contamination and negatively affect sustainability. Something I never thought about or did not even know was that we also needed a lot of water to produce them. In fact, to produce a smartphone is needed about 910 liters of water, which equals 240 gallons of water (Miller and Spoolman 304). Learning this information made me think about how we are living in an industrial and technological era, and how millions of smartphones are produced every day. It also made me think, if that is just for a smartphone imagine how many liters of water are needed to produce, laptops, iPads, and other devices. Also, it is really important to think about our water footprint, which is “a rough measure of the volume of freshwater that you use directly or indirectly” (Miller and Spoolman 303). Using smartphones and buying a new one every time they get on the market affect our water footprint as well as showering, cooking, and doing other shores. Also, the poorly managed of water in dry places causes water scarcity, which is the current situation for  28% of the population, mainly in Africa (Miller and Spoolman 306). When talking about producing food, dry areas are not the best to grow crops and not having access to water makes it even more difficult. This is something common since water just like other resources is not equally distributed, which can be seen in Africa since there are a lot of people living in food and water scarcity.

What are some ways you can lower your water footprint?

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

Word count: 841

Image from: 

Government of Ontario. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-water-quantity-management-program.

Capitalism and the Environment

In today’s blog we will talk about environmental issues and how capitalism plays a huge role on them. I remember that last week professor Kindervater mentioned that he noticed how every time we talked about environmental issues, capitalism came up. The text What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism by Fred Magdoffegan started by mentioning some environmental problems such as global warming, water acidification and glazier melting. As mentioned before on other blogs, we have talked about the negative impacts of carbon dioxide and how it is the main cause of global warming. The emissions of carbon dioxide are directly related to different industries and their production of woods, as we will see throughout this week’s blog.

You probably have heard about the contamination caused by industries before since it is something commonly known. An example of this is the “contamination of the air and surface waters with industrial pollutants. Some of these pollutants (the metal mercury, for example) go up smoke stacks to later fall and contaminate soil and water, while others are leached into surface waters from waste storage facilities” (Magdoffegan 2). Industries contaminate water and air by releasing chemicals that are harmful to the environment, which causes water acidification. This and other chemicals polluting oceans and other water bodies threaten the lives of aquatic species and their ecosystems. These industries affect different species since they alter their ecosystems and cause their extinction “As species disappear, ecosystems that depend on the multitude of species to function begin to degrade” (Magdoffegan 3). As we have talked before, biodiversity plays a huge role on keeping the environment working as it is supposed to, and helping other species survive. The extinction of one specie endangers another because of the food chain. Some species consume more than one specie, but when one these species get extinct, the other one is the only option left, which can lead that specie to extinction as well.

Another reason why industries are related to environmental issues is because they are exploiting natural sources. Many environmentalists “have concluded that continuing “business as usual” is the path to global disaster […] A global social system organized on the basis of “enough is little” is bound eventually to destroy all around it and itself as well” (Magdoffegan 3).  It was mentioned a few times throughout the text how capitalism leads to the need of accumulating wealth and exploiting the environment in order to achieve money and a good economy. I was also explained that this is what the system wants, for us to always buy and want more, to never have enough because that is what makes them richer. This just made me think about how we do not think about the environment, how we just take and take or buy whatever we want without considering that by doing that we affect the environment. Every time we buy stuff that we do not need we are giving more money to the companies, system and people that exploit the environments and take resources from it without any concern of what could happen next.

As mentioned before, capitalism and the system has created and helped develop our human greediness and egocentrism. “Although there is no natural limit to human greed, there are limits, as we are daily learning, to many resources, including “renewable” ones, such as the productivity of the seas” (Magdoffegan 10). Is not a secret to anyone that we are greedy, the most we have the most we want, but nature has its limit, even renewable sources. We know that renewable sources can be replenished but in order for them to do that we need to give them enough time and using them in a mindful way. This depletion of renewable sources leads to a term referred in the text, which is the tragedy of the common. The tragedy of the common occurs when we take renewable sources carelessly because they can be replenished, but because of it, we end up lacking them.  Besides just lacking these sources, this carelessly usage of them might also cause the extinction of different species of plants and animals. All this connects to different industries and corporation since they exploit natural sources to gain wealth and to maintain economy floating, which is one of the main causes of environmental problems. A possible solution for this could be having a steady economy with zero growth, where the money is paid to workers and they spent it on goods in order to keep the industries floating (Magdoffegan 7). Our growing economy affects the environment due to exploitation of resources and desire of money but producing goods and enough money to keep the industries going might create a stable economy, and to reduce environmental impacts.  

Do you think that in this capital system would be possible to have an economy with no growth?  

(Magdoff & Foster, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism, 2010)

Word count: 812

First image from:

 SP the Bullet. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://socialistproject.ca/2020/01/the-limits-of-capitalism/. 

Second image from:

The Guardian. Accessed on 12 May, 2022, https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/nov/26/capitalism-environment-green-greed-slow-life-symposium-tony-juniper

My Environmental Worldview

In the beginning of this course, we were asked about the basic beliefs of environmental worldview. At that time, I did not have a clear view of my environmental worldview, but I knew that we needed to protect the environment.  Since we are kids, we are taught about climate change, global warming, and their negative effects or how they world will get destroyed because of them. Thanks to this and other reasons my initial reasoning or basic belief was that it was important for us to save the earth because it was our home and because otherwise, we would die. I also cared about the environment but destroying our planet and what would happen afterwards was something that really concerned me. In my opinion it sounds more like a human-centered worldview, which is ironic, because when we went into depth on this topic, I hated seeing how people with this worldview was so selfish and egocentric. Now that I have gained more knowledge about the topic, I realized that even though I care about human lives and our well-being, it is not my priority and do not define my worldview. I would define my worldview as a combination of life and earth-centered environmental worldviews. During this class my mindset changed, and I realized that even the animals and insects I do not like play an essential role in the environment. That explains my life-centered environmental worldview, but the earth-centered one can be explained by my recognition of how important natural resources are and how we could never replace them. Throughout this course I realized how strong is our dependence on earth, which I probably always knew deep inside.

This course has introduced me and all my classmates to different environmental issues and solutions for them. As for today, I want to change my lifestyle and make my activities eco-friendlier. I know that even if I change use of natural resources, I will still have negative impacts on the environment, but I am a strong believer that I can also have some positive ones. For now, I have thought about how to decrease my water footprint, which could be done by spending less time showering and wasting less water while doing the dishes. On the other hand, a way of decreasing my environmental footprint could be by eating less meat and buying less products in plastic containers. Now that I have some ideas of how to help the environment, I will start putting them into practice and do as much as I can to have an eco-friendlier life.

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Capitalism and the environment

Capitalism and the environment

In today’s blog we will talk about environmental issues and how capitalism plays a huge role on them. I remember that last week professor Kindervater mentioned that he noticed how every time we talked about environmental issues, capitalism came up. The text What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism by Fred Magdoffegan started by mentioning some environmental problems such as global warming, water acidification and glazier melting. As mentioned before on other blogs, we have talked about the negative impacts of carbon dioxide and how it is the main cause of global warming. The emissions of carbon dioxide are directly related to different industries and their production of woods, as we will see throughout this week’s blog.

You probably have heard about the contamination caused by industries before since it is something commonly known. An example of this is the “contamination of the air and surface waters with industrial pollutants. Some of these pollutants (the metal mercury, for example) go up smoke stacks to later fall and contaminate soil and water, while others are leached into surface waters from waste storage facilities” (Magdoffegan 2). Industries contaminate water and air by releasing chemicals that are harmful to the environment, which causes water acidification. This and other chemicals polluting oceans and other water bodies threaten the lives of aquatic species and their ecosystems. These industries affect different species since they alter their ecosystems and cause their extinction “As species disappear, ecosystems that depend on the multitude of species to function begin to degrade” (Magdoffegan 3). As we have talked before, biodiversity plays a huge role on keeping the environment working as it is supposed to, and helping other species survive. The extinction of one specie endangers another because of the food chain. Some species consume more than one specie, but when one these species get extinct, the other one is the only option left, which can lead that specie to extinction as well.

Another reason why industries are related to environmental issues is because they are exploiting natural sources. Many environmentalists “have concluded that continuing “business as usual” is the path to global disaster […] A global social system organized on the basis of “enough is little” is bound eventually to destroy all around it and itself as well” (Magdoffegan 3).  It was mentioned a few times throughout the text how capitalism leads to the need of accumulating wealth and exploiting the environment in order to achieve money and a good economy. I was also explained that this is what the system wants, for us to always buy and want more, to never have enough because that is what makes them richer. This just made me think about how we do not think about the environment, how we just take and take or buy whatever we want without considering that by doing that we affect the environment. Every time we buy stuff that we do not need we are giving more money to the companies, system and people that exploit the environments and take resources from it without any concern of what could happen next.

As mentioned before, capitalism and the system has created and helped develop our human greediness and egocentrism. “Although there is no natural limit to human greed, there are limits, as we are daily learning, to many resources, including “renewable” ones, such as the productivity of the seas” (Magdoffegan 10). Is not a secret to anyone that we are greedy, the most we have the most we want, but nature has its limit, even renewable sources. We know that renewable sources can be replenished but in order for them to do that we need to give them enough time and using them in a mindful way. This depletion of renewable sources leads to a term referred in the text, which is the tragedy of the common. The tragedy of the common occurs when we take renewable sources carelessly because they can be replenished, but because of it, we end up lacking them.  Besides just lacking these sources, this carelessly usage of them might also cause the extinction of different species of plants and animals. All this connects to different industries and corporation since they exploit natural sources to gain wealth and to maintain economy floating, which is one of the main causes of environmental problems. A possible solution for this could be having a steady economy with zero growth, where the money is paid to workers and they spent it on goods in order to keep the industries floating (Magdoffegan 7). Our growing economy affects the environment due to exploitation of resources and desire of money but producing goods and enough money to keep the industries going might create a stable economy, and to reduce environmental impacts.  

Do you think that in this capital system would be possible to have an economy with no growth?  

(Magdoff & Foster, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism, 2010)

Word count: 812

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Water resources, their usage, and importance

In today’s blog, we will talk about water resources, their usage, and how we abuse them. It is not a secret that every single one of us needs water in our daily life. Water is used for different purposes such as drinking, cooking, growing crops, cleaning, and showering, just to mention a few. The problem comes when we abuse this renewable source since water does not just support our needs, but it helps the environment in several ways. Water determines climate change, it dilutes and removes pollutants and wastes produced by human activities (Miller and Spoolman 301). Since water helps to clean the wastes and pollutants that we produce a shortage on water by a poorly manage of it causes droughts that might increase pollution.  The shortage on water is something that will not just increase pollution but also decrease our life’s quality since we need water for every aspect of our lives.

Water is just as important as oxygen because just like you cannot live without oxygen, you cannot live without water. Water is more needed than food since people live several weeks without food but not more than a few days without water, also there is no substitute for water because it maintains us alive (Miller and Spoolman 301). Water composes more than half of the percentage of our body and that is why water is so important for our survival. Even though water is more necessary than food to keep us alive it is also key to produce crops since they need to be irrigated to grow. Based on the statistics 70% of the freshwater we use a year is to grow crops, industries use 20% and the 10% left is for our daily use (Miller and Spoolman 303).  Most of the water we take from lakes, rivers and aquifers is used to irrigate but because of the poor manage and over usage, it ends up causing soil erosion and desertification, which affects crop production and the economy. To maintain economy stable it is necessary to have goods to sell and if crop production decays, economy does too, and the prices raise. Since too much irrigation and over usage of water affects crop production by depleting the soil, it leaves us with less areas to cultivate, which makes food production harder and causes an unstable economy. On the other hand, our activities are also related to fish population since thanks to our activities and pollution caused by this, the water quality decays, which reduces fish population and causes aquatic species extinction (Miller and Spoolman 302). This is not just about fish population, its impact on the economy or our poor management of water, it is also about how we are affecting different species such as sea turtles. I have talked about this in my other blogs, but I will mention it again, we are littering the oceans (other bodies of water, too) with plastic and other materials, which hurt and suffocate sea turtles. Aquatic ecosystems and what our actions are doing to them should be something to reflect on since they are causing the extinction of sea turtles, fishes, and other non-aquatic species as well.

I have heard in the last few years that changing your phone every time a new one gets on the market was bad for the environment, but I did not quite understand why.  I mean I thought it was because of the materials needed to produce them, which I think play a huge role on contamination and negatively affect sustainability. Something I never thought about or did not even know was that we also needed a lot of water to produce them. In fact, to produce a smartphone is needed about 910 liters of water, which equals 240 gallons of water (Miller and Spoolman 304). Learning this information made me think about how we are living in an industrial and technological era, and how millions of smartphones are produced every day. It also made me think if that is just for a smartphone imagine how many liters of water are needed to produce, laptops, iPads, and other devices. Also, it is really important to think about our water footprint, which is “a rough measure of the volume of freshwater that you use directly or indirectly” (Miller and Spoolman 303). Using smartphones and buying a new one every time they get on the market affect our water footprint as well as showering, cooking, and doing other shores. Also, the poorly managed of water in dry places causes water scarcity, which is the current situation for  28% of the population, mainly in Africa (Miller and Spoolman 306). When talking about producing food, dry areas are not the best to grow crops and not having access to water makes it even more difficult. This is something common since water just like other resources is not equally distributed, which can be seen in Africa since there are a lot of people living in food and water scarcity.

What are some ways you can lower your water footprint?

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)

Word count: 841

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Our abuse to the Environment

In today’s blog we are going to talk about Environmental issues and global warming, which affect and should concern all of us as part of society. Not just because it is damaging to the world we live in, but because it will cause the end of our (human’s) existence. The first step to help the environment is by accepting that these problems actually exist and taking action into it. What prevents the world from getting better are the people from different generations that do not want to accept or realize that we are ruining nature and its biodiversity by wasting all the resources nature has given to us.

As known, we rely on natural resources to survive, to have clean air, food and other components of our planet’s life support system (Miller 3). Nature provides many resources, and these can be divided into renewable and non-renewable resources. Renewable sources are the ones that can be used indefinitely if you give time for them to be renewed, while non-renewable sources are limited and take millions of years to be renewed (Miller 4). The problem comes when we abuse these sources and how it affects the environment surrounding us. Based on studies 60 % of the resources have been overused (Miller 11). Even when renewable sources can be replaced quickly, we are using and abusing from them constantly. People and companies usually do not wait for them to be replenished, which could cause a lack or the extinction of them in the future. On the other hand, abusing non-renewable sources is harmful to the environment and adds pollution and waste to it. Usually, these wastes are thrown to water, the air or the environment in general, which is why it ends up affecting different type of organisms. Either way, overusing these resources (renewable and non-renewable) affects our impact in the world and increases our ecological footprints, which refers to the effect each person has in the

world.

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Going back to the planet’s life support system, the truth is that we as humans prioritize money more than the environment. It has been seen that we worry more about what we can get from these sources than using them in a responsible manner. An example of this is how we take as many resources as we can to make money out of them and increase our countries economy. The worse part of this is that we do so without thinking about the negative impacts it might bring to our planet, such as global warming and the increase of pollution. The overuse of fossil fuels play an important role in the economy since they are used for different purposes, have high prices and are difficult to obtain. Besides this, another important fact is how harmful their usage is for the environment and how burning them adds carbon dioxide to the environment, contributes to global warming and causes air pollution. This affects us and the environment since 9 million people per year are killed mostly by air pollution (Miller 3). All these deaths just show how we are killing each other with the sources nature provides us and how the practices and materials used have negative impacts. Some of the sources we use such as plastic bags end up affecting and contaminating rivers, lakes and oceans faster than they get cleaned by their natural cleaning processes (Miller 6). Plastic wastes usually ends up floating on the ocean, contaminating it and suffocating and hurting sea turtles.

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What could you do to have a more sustainable life and decrease your footprint?

word count: 593

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)

1st image from

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)

2nd image from

Defenders of wildlife. Accessed 12 March 2022, https://defenders.org/blog/2020/03/give-damn-wildlife

Our energy and its impact

In today’s blog we will be talking about the components of matter, energy and how all this connects to the environmental issues caused by us. This is important because of the connection it has with air pollution and how we live daily. In the beginning of the reading, I was like, why is it important that everything is composed by atoms? What does it have to do with the environment and our impact on it? I kept reading and learned more about atoms and where they get their energy from. Their energy comes from their electrons and protons and since matter (of any kind) comes from atoms, our energy is composed by them. We get our energy from natural sources, and it is divided into two types of energy, renewable and non-renewable (Miller and Spielman 35). Renewable energy comes from renewable sources (the ones that can be replenished) and the other one comes from non-renewable sources (the ones that take thousands or millions of years to be replenished). We use 85% percent of commercial energy, and the 80% of this one is from the burning of non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels (Miller and Solman 36). The burning and usage of fossil fuels and coal is what increases the emission of carbon dioxide and air pollution in the environment.

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We will see how this connects to our next point, which is about the importance of rainforests and how they are irreplaceable to the environment. These forests cover 7% of the Earth and contain half of the world’s species, including plants and animals. It is not a secret that we as humans cut these forest off and slash and burn them, affecting with this their stability and biodiversity. Rainforests function as shelters to many species that are hugely impacted by these practices and abuses of nature. Based on scientific research and observations “clearing these forests causes the extinction of many plant and animal species by destroying the habitats where they live. The loss of key species in these forests can have a ripple effect that leads to the extinction of other species they help support” (Miller and Solman 43). Some animals are essential for the food chain and their extinction could cause the extinction of animals without other alternatives. Besides of maintaining and taking care of variety of species, these rainforests are important because of the plants and trees found on them, which function as natural air filters. It is known that plants clean the air though their energy process (photosynthesis). Cutting down these plants prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions since there are less plants using photosynthesis to clean the air and produce more oxygen (Miller and Spoolman 43). A decrease on the number of trees and plants of these rainforest (which clean most of the world’s air) causes an increase in the carbon dioxide levels of the atmosphere, which ends up worsening pollution, climate change and global warming.

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After reading this, I understood the purpose of the explanations of atoms, the energy and where we get it from. It was necessary the explanation of these key terms to understand how energy is composed, the type of energy we use and why it impacts the world in a negative way. The use of coal, fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources and the burning of them are harmful to the environment. When they are burned, they release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which affects the ozone layer. This ends up causing harmful UV rays to trespass and deteriorate this layer, which causes and contributes to global warming, climate change and several health problems. These negative impacts of the energy we use cause iceberg melting, extinction (of polar bears and other species) and unpredictable weather changes. These climate changes and heat waves caused by them lead to wildfires which kills rainforest’s vegetation and organisms. This negative impacts on the forest’s biodiversity are also caused because of the practice called slash and burn, which is used to clean areas and plants by burning these places to grow crops. These fires also get out of control and causes these dangerous fires to start and contribute to the extinction of a variety of species. This fires also get impacted by climate change which make them even worse and more dangerous to the existence of the rainforest’s biodiversity and stability.

Do you think slash and burn is a practice used by some governments as an intent to increase the economy of their countries?

Word count: 753

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)

1st Image from

ChemTalk. Accessed day 12 March 2022, https://chemistrytalk.org/protons-neutrons-electrons/

2nd image from

WorldAtlas. Accessed day 12 March 2022, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-reasons-why-we-must-protect-our-tropical-rainforests.html

Environmental worldview and Ethics

In today’s blog, we will be talking about terms such as environmental worldview and ethics and how they impact the world around us. These terms are important since they are the cause why many humans act the way they do when it comes to the environment. I will begin by explaining what the term environmental world view means; this term refers to each person’s beliefs about how the natural world works and how their interaction should be based on them (Miller and Spoolman 637). This key term is a reflection of our environmental ethics, which is our perspective of what actions are wrong or right when referring to the environment (Miller and Spoolman 637). As one term is a reflection of the other, they both show our values and how important the environment truly is to us. Both terms are usually affected by human egocentrism and the need to seek what is better for them. Focusing only on our needs end up creating selfish environmental worldviews, like the belief that the environment is just there to provide us and that we do not need to do anything in return. This type of mindset is incorrect since, we must give the environment something in return, which should be our compromise to do everything in our hands to protect it. What I mean by protecting the environment is not to stop eating meat, not using cars, wood, or the type of energy we use (non-renewable energy). What I mean is to moderate these activities to make our lives more sustainable and protect the environment or world’s biodiversity.

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Activities such as slash and burn (near forests) are not really necessary and often create wildfires that not just take away natural air filters, such as, trees and other variety of plants, but also cause the death of animals. These deaths decrease the biodiversity of the rainforests and little by little might lead some species to extinction. These and more environmental problems occurred because of this egocentrism and human-centered worldview, which makes them focus more on improving the economy. Some people try to improve economy by implementing this practice as a way to grow instead of thinking how it might affect the environment. What they do not realize is that this economic whim is affecting and taking the lives of many organism living in the planet.

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On the other hand, life-centered environmental worldviews value the importance and existence of every organism without taking into account how useful or not they are to humans (Miller and Spoolman 639). People with this type of worldview believe that we have a duty with the environment, protecting every organism from extinction since they are unique and important to the environmental balance and survival (Miller and Spoolman 639). These people also believe that we must preserve Earth and their services not just now, but for the future, which reminded me of how Native Americans protect nature to leave the world as stable as they found it or even better for future generations. “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children” (Miller and Spoolman 639). This made me think about our morality as a society and how most of us are not thinking about the scarcity we are causing and leaving to generations rising and the ones to come. How we take morality into account to judge others, but do not think about it when we are damaging the environment. We are not thinking about how we cause the lack of resources and food in different areas of the world. People with this worldview also believe that we are not in charge of the world, that we are part of it and its ecological processes, and that we need to learn how to work with instead of against nature (Miller and Spoolman 639-640). To learn how to work with nature, we must be aware of the number of resources available at the moment and how to manage them in sustainable ways for us and the environment, be aware of our footprints and how quickly they spread and keeping in mind that we should not cross Earth’s ecological limits (Miller and Spoolman 642). At the end of the day, we need to recognize that the Earth does not need us, that we need the Earth and that it lived many years and is able to live so much more without us (Miller and Spoolman 642).

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Would having classes about environmental ethics open the minds of new generations and find win-win solutions where can have a good economy and a sustainable life?

Word count: 768

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

1st image from

Earth Law Center. Accessed 12 March 2022, https://www.earthlawcenter.org/blog-entries/category/Oceans

2nd image from

Defenders of wildlife. Accessed 12 March 2022, https://defenders.org/blog/2020/03/give-damn-wildlife

3rd image from

Shutterstock. Accessed 12 March 2022, https://www.shutterstock.com/search/biodiversity

Economy and the Environment

In today’s blog, we will be talking about the economy and how it affects the environment and its sustainability. This is important because it plays a huge role in our daily life, our impact in the world and how we abuse of resources. To begin I will explain what economics is, this is a social science that has to do with the production and distribution of goods in order to satisfy people’s needs (Miller and Spoolman 590). When talking about the economic system is important to mention about demand and supply; where supply is the amount of goods offered and demand is the number of goods people need or desire. This also impacts the prices, for example if the demand is greater the the supply the prices rise, otherwise it decreases (Miller and Spoolman 590). One of the problems with the economy comes when companies are more focused on making profits and taking advantages of the government than worrying about the health of consumers and the environment.

As probably known to produce goods you need resources to produce them and these are divided into 3 categories, which are natural, human and manufactured capital. Natural capital refers to all the resources achieved from nature, human capital refers to the people and ideas needed for or to improve the product and manufactured capital are the tools and machinery needed for the production of the goods. One key term when talking about market is market failure, which refers to the negative impacts of the market and the economy, such as the role they play in pollution. Economy and most companies play a big role when talking about pollution since they abuse of natural sources, produce a huge quantity of waste and high emissions of carbon dioxide. Talking about the abuse of natural sources the truth is that many companies are mass producers and causes more wastes, which usually end up polluting water. It is not just the overproduction what affects the environment but also how greedy this companies become and how they just take without taking into account that some of the resources they use are not renewable or how what they are doing will affect the environment. Exists the idea that “one reason why markets often fail to provide environmental protection is their failure to assign monetary value to the benefits provided by the earth’s natural capital” (Miller and Spoolman 591), but what these people do not realize is how important these resources are and how the environment and its resources will never have a monetary value. They could never have one, we are not able to produce them or do what nature does and even if we could it would never be the same and we would still need nature on the process. What these companies are doing is killing nature little by little, sometimes by throwing chemicals to different bodies of water, wastes or even by burning fossil fuels and polluting the air. To be honest these companies are not just killing the environment they are also killing us since many people die because of air pollution; and the worst part is that we play a huge role on it. Every time we buy these good such as clothes, furniture or buy unnecessary things and throw them away, we are contributing to the world’s pollution.

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Economic growth refers to the increase of a nation or company’s capacity to provide goods, which become unsustainable it degrades irreplaceable natural capital (Miller and Spoolman 592). Again, people are not taking into account that we need to considerate nature and that we need to give time to it so renewable sources so they can be replenished. This unsustainable uses of natural resources, protests and society’s concern lead to government intervention, which is composed by environmental laws and regulations. The problem with this intervention is that too much involvement of the government can have negative impacts in innovation and the market, while too little causes environmental degradation and injustices (Miller and Spoolman 613). Is important to highlight that economy play a significant role in today’s society, but a bad management of it could affect the government and its policies. It is believed that the government is the answer to these problems and that the implementation of policies such as higher taxation for companies hurting the environment could help to solve the problem. There are different solutions for this such as companies turning into more sustainable ways such as recycling, changing formulas and using more sustainable energy (solar and wind energy).

What could be some solutions to help with pollution? How could we have an impact in government environmental policies and laws?

Word count: 776

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

1st image

https://www.knysnaplettherald.com/News/Article/LifeStyle/fashion-the-2nd-largest-polluter-in-the-world-201906050902

Fordham Climate impact initiative

I am currently enrolled in the group, and I went to one of the meetings. In this meeting they received ideas to help the environment for earth week and I learned about some of the groups and what projects they are doing so I could join one. I sent an email to one of the leaders (the social media one) and id doing almost the same as what we are doing, writing posts to inform about environmental issues and how to help with them.

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Ethics and the Environment

In today’s blog, we will be talking about terms such as environmental worldview and ethics and how they impact the world around us. I will begin by explaining what the term environmental world view means; this term refers to each person’s beliefs about how the natural world works and how their interaction should be based on those beliefs (Miller and Spoolman 637). This is a key term since it is a reflection of our environmental ethics, which is our perspective of what actions are wrong or right when referring to the environment (Miller and Spoolman 637). As one term is a reflection of the other, they both show our values and how important the environment truly is to us. Both terms are usually affected by human egocentrism and the need to seek what is better for them, which end up creating selfish environmental worldviews, such as the belief that the environment is just there to provide us and that we do not need to do anything in return. This type of mindset is incorrect since, in order to have a better future and a sustainable one, we must give the environment something in return, which should be our compromise to do everything in our hands to protect it. What I mean by protecting the environment is not to stop eating meat, not using cars,  wood, or the type of energy we use (non-renewable energy); I mean to moderate these activities to make our lives more sustainable and protect the environment world’s biodiversity. Activities such as slash and burn (near forests) are not really necessary and often create wildfires that not just take away natural air filters, such as, trees and other variety of plants, but also cause the death of animals; which decreases the biodiversity of these rainforests and little by little might lead some species to extinction. The problem comes because of this egocentrism and human-centered worldview, which make them focus more on improving the economy by using slash and burn (to cultivate) or any other activities than to care about the environment; without realizing that this economic whim is affecting all the organism living in the planet.    

On the other hand, life-centered environmental worldviews value the importance and existence of every organism without taking into account how useful or not they are to humans (Miller and Spoolman 639). People with this type of worldview believe that we have a duty with the environment, which is protecting every organism from extinction since they are unique and important to the environmental balance and survival (Miller and Spoolman 639). These people also believe that we must preserve Earth and their services not just now, but for the future, which reminded me of how Native Americans protect nature to leave the world as stable as they found it or even better for future generations. This idea of our duty to future generations is connected to this meaningful quote, “the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children” (Miller and Spoolman 639). This made me think about our morality as a society and how most of us are not thinking about the scarcity we are causing and leaving to generations rising and the ones to come. How we take morality into account to judge others, but do not think about it when we are damaging the environment and not thinking about how we are the cause of the lack of resources and food in different areas of the world. These people also believe that we are not in charge of the world, that we are part of it and its ecological processes, and that we need to learn how to work with instead of against nature (Miller and Spoolman 639-640). To learn how to work with nature, we must understand the number of resources available at the moment and how to manage them in ways that are sustainable for us and the environment, but we must also be aware of our footprints and how quickly they spread and that we should not cross Earth’s ecological limits (Miller and Spoolman 642). At the end of the day, we need to recognize that the Earth does not need us, that we need the Earth and that it lived many years and is able to live so much more without us (Miller and Spoolman 642).

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment, 2018)

Would having classes about environmental ethics open the minds of new generations and find win-win solutions where can have a good economy and a sustainable life?

Word count:  764

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Our energy and its impact

At the beginning of the reading, I was like, why is it important that everything is composed of atoms? What does it have to do with the environment and our impact on it? I kept reading and learned more about atoms and where they get their energy from. Their energy comes from their electrons and protons. Then, it talked about where we get our energy from, which is from natural sources. There are two types of energy: renewable and non-renewable (Miller and Spoolman 35). Renewable energy comes from renewable sources (the ones that can be replenished) and the non-renewable ones from non-renewable sources (the ones that take thousands or millions of years to be replenished). We use 85% of commercial energy, and 80% of this is from burning non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels (Miller and Spoolman 36).

Then, the readings about rainforests explained how they are important to the environment. These forests cover 7% of the Earth and contain half of the world’s species, including plants and animals and are natural air filters (Miller and Spoolman 43). It is not a secret that we as humans cut these forests off and slash and burn them, affecting with this the rainforests’ stability and biodiversity. Rainforests function as shelters to many species that are hugely impacted by human practices and abuses of nature, which could lead them to extinction. Based on scientific research and observations, “clearing these forests causes the extinction of many plan and animal species by destroying the habitats where they live. The loss of key species in these forests can have a ripple effect that leads to the extinction of other species they help support” (Miller and Spoolman 43). Besides maintaining and taking care of a variety of species, these rainforests are also important because of the plant and trees that can be found on them. It is known that plants clean the air through their energy process (photosynthesis). Cutting down these plants prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions since there are fewer plants using photosynthesis to clean the air and produce more oxygen (Miller and Spoolman 43). A decrease in the number of trees and plants of these rainforests (which clean most of the world’s air) causes an increase in the carbon dioxide levels of the atmosphere, which ends up worsening pollution, climate change and global warming.

After reading this, I understood the purpose of the explanations of atoms, the energy and where we get it from. It was necessary the explanation of these key terms to understand how energy is composed, the type of energy we use and why it impacts the world in a negative way. The use of coal, fossil fuels, and other non-renewable sources and their burning is harmful to the environment. This is because when they are burned, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which affects the ozone layer. This ends up causing harmful UV rays to trespass and deteriorates this layer, which causes and contributes to global warming and climate change. These negative impacts of our energy cause iceberg melting and unpredictable weather changes.

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)

[rayniandtheenvironment]

Our abuse of the environment

Environmental issues and global warming affect and should concern all of us as part of society. Not just because it is damaging to the world we live in, but because it will cause the end of our (humans) existence. The first step to help the environment is by accepting that these problems actually exist and taking action into it. People from different generations do not want to accept or realize that we are ruining nature and its biodiversity and wasting all the resources nature has given to us.

As known, we rely on natural resources to survive, to have clean air, food and other components of our planet’s life support system (Miller 3). Nature provides many resources, and these can be divided into renewable and non-renewable resources. Renewable sources are the ones that can be used indefinitely if you give time for them to be renewed, while non-renewable sources are limited and take millions of years to be renewed (Miller 4). The problem comes when we abuse these sources and how it affects the environment surrounding us. Based on studies 60 % of the resources have been overused (Miller 11). Even when renewable sources can be replaced quickly, using them constantly could cause a lack of them in the future and the extinction of some of them. On the other hand, abusing non-renewable sources is harmful to the environment and adds pollution and waste to it. Also, the overuse of these natural resources (renewable and non-renewable) affects our impact in the world and increases our ecological footprints.

Going back to the planet’s life support system, the truth is that we as humans prioritize money more than the environment; it has been seen that we worry more about what we can get from these sources than using them in a responsible manner. An example of this is how we take as many resources as we can to make money out of them and increase our countries economy. The worse part of this is that we do so without thinking about the negative impacts it might bring to our planet, such as global warming and the increase of pollution. Fossil fuels play an important role in the economy since they are used for different purposes and play an important role in our economy, expensive and difficult to obtain. Besides these facts about fossil fuels, another important fact is how harmful their usage is for the environment and how burning them adds carbon dioxide to the environment and contributes to global warming and air pollution. Our actions do not just affect the environment, but ourselves since 9 million people per year are killed mostly by air pollution (Miller 3). These and other practices and materials used by humans, such as plastic, end up affecting and contaminating rivers, lakes and oceans faster than they get cleaned by their natural cleaning processes (Miller 6). An example of these materials could be plastic, since wastes of this material have been floating on the ocean, contaminating it and suffocating sea turtles and hurting them.

(Miller & Scott, Living in the Environment , 2018)