Final blog?

What do I think is the most pressing environmental issue after this semester? Why? What can we do about it? What is the most interesting thing I learned this semester?

After this outstanding semester, after taking environmental Science AND Ecology, I would say the most important environmental issue at this time is culture and education.

Our culture is one of wastefulness. We have been burdened with a crippled conscience that allows and propagates consumption at all costs. Lack of education and an overwhelming cultural message of consumption is rendering our youth incapable of recognizing threats to the most necessary elements of life: Water, soil, plant life, biodiversity, nutrients and even temperature. The media messages that are constantly rammed into our subconscious tell us that consumption and material possessions are to be valued over all, even if the cost is detrimental to fundamental life systems.

Simple things that we have not learned to identify as destructive are impacting the world around us significantly. Bottled water for example, even though it is not regulated as strictly as tap water, it is consumed in mass quantities, regardless of the impact to the environment. The plastic in water bottles may contain contaminants that are unhealthy to humans, only one in five water bottles is recycled, and the amount of petroleum products used to produce the packaging annually (17 million barrels of oil) is a finite resource. These water bottles will be around to haunt us for thousands of years and may end up in our food chain through bio-accumulation. This is only one example of the many destructive products we demand as a culture on a daily basis.

This culture of consumption is detrimental for certain but will become even more detrimental as other cultures, cultures that may have been operating within their ecological means look to us at the United States as a model for what they want their life to look like. As they increase consumption global resources will be spread thin resulting in conflict over what is left. Additionally these resources are finite and will become exceedingly scarce as demand increases, a recipe for disaster.

What can we do about such a problem? I am not certain. Stopping a worldwide wave of consumption culture is undoubtedly going to be the greatest challenge to our species for the immediate future. I believe the most effective measure would be to ”be the change we need to see”, if America and the rest of the developed countries in the world make a concerted effort to change the way we live we may be able to show the rest of the world that the blind fervor of consumption is not the path to happiness. We need to educate our citizens and specifically our youth. Education will be the push we need to disregard misinformation, and become proactive.

I saw the effect we have as western culture when I was deployed to Iraq. One day as I saw kids running down the street in cheap sunglasses and fake Nikes, beside Iraqi security forces trying their best to look like Americans, with gear slung allover them, looking “cool.” I realized that we as Americans didn’t need to fight wars anymore, we just needed to show up and look cool, because then everybody will want what we have, then we just have to sit back and sell it to them, and watch the world fill up with more trash.

Trash is the basis for one of the most interesting things I learned this semester, specifically plastic. After going to the landfill, learning what gets recycled and at what rate. After seeing plastic bags blowing across the dump, and looking down to a ground packed with plastic. After watching Wasteland, after taking a hard look at my own refuse. I realize we must stop using plastic. It’s a resource made of oil, which took millions of years to create, and we just form it and craft it into the most mundane items, items that will be most likely thrown away and down-cycled. My future goal is to eliminate this toxic and wasteful substance from every aspect of my life.