Unit 4
Compilation
Chapter
12: Energy
*Case Study
*Energy Resources & Issues
*Fossil Fuels
*Energy Conservation
Chapter
8: Environmental Health
*Case Study
*Environmental Health
*Toxicology
*Movement, Distribution, & Fate of Toxins
Chapter
15: Environmental Policy & Sustainability
*Case Study
*Environmental Policy & Law
*Major Environmental Laws
*How Are Policies Made?
*International Policies
*What Can Individuals Do?
Chapter
12: Energy
*Case
Study: Mining A Tropical Paradise
What was once
known as a luxurious tropical island filled with green life from coast to coast
is now devastated with un-inhabitable environment from stress induced drought.
The island of Nauru was turned upside down from mining, and even worse it was
mining for a phosphate sold to foreign countries for use as a rich fertilizer.
In the process of mining, the vegetation was destroyed leaving only rock in its
place. Without necessary vegetation, the natural hydrologic cycle could not
continue and the rain clouds were slowly chased away.
The riches the
fertilizer brought the islanders had severe consequences. The island not only
suffers environmental devastation, but the well being of the islanders is at
great risk as well. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease plague the
people while forcing them to find a new place to continue their lives. As
drought continues to cause hardship and the resources run out, the islanders
are forced to relocate. Hoping their investments in the mining will help them
to purchase another island knowing they will never find one as beautiful as
their homeland. It is questioned whether or not the people deserve the help
from their surrounding countries in finding and relocating to another island?
Although they made a mistake, should they really have to suffer the rest of
their lives for it? This should be seen as an example for a lesson learned to
all of what the world could turn into if action against unnecessary mining,
while implementing environmentally friendly ways of life does not take
priority.
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*Energy
Resources & Uses
The majority of
our energy supply has been dependent on heat since the beginning of the
Neolithic Era approximately 10,000 years ago. As technology progressed, the
world became dependent on fossil
fuels (derived from natural resources including organic waste) to
produce energy. New resources of dependable energy have been developed, such as
solar panels and wind turbines that create energy from renewable resources like
the sun and wind. These energy creating tools do not cause damage to the
atmosphere like the smoke from burning coal, which currently provides 88% of
our energy.
Our future as
well as our children’s depends on changing our energy production. The
developing country of China (who has contributed a large amount of pollution to
the environment from commercial industrial production and improper regulations)
has made a huge step towards dependence on renewable energy. China currently
has over 40 million roof top solar panels and they are increasing that number
every day! Not only do our energy resources require us to change to continue
sustainable life on earth, our incredible amount of wasted energy needs to be
reduced as well. In the U.S. alone we consume one quarter of the fossil fuel
produced in the entire world and only 7% of our energy supply is produced from
renewable energy sources! One of our biggest battles with foreign countries,
and our highest cost to most citizens, comes from oil, but this does not stop
the average American from using approximately 60 barrels of oil every year! We
do not have to sacrifice our luxuries necessarily to protect our environment
either, just substitute our resources to be more efficient. There are many
countries that have higher standards of living than the U.S. and still only
consume half as much energy as we do!
We use a lot of
natural resources just to transport our resources for production as well.
Although transportation of natural resources by ships, trains, and barges
account for only 12% or less of our transportation fuel, it’s still unnecessary
pollution emitted into the environment. Energy used to make electricity is
considered a “clean” source of energy because it doesn’t emit any pollution and
almost all of its energy is put to useful work.
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*Fossil
Fuels
Coal mining is a
huge industry in the United States and employs many American’s with a good
paying, benefits included, DANGEROUS job! Coal not only provides a large
percentage of our energy, it also provides environmentally and medically
hazardous pollution to the air we breathe. Although coal mining can be
beneficial to our energy supply and most likely keep us going for thousands of
years, the damage it is doing is far more hazardous than it’s worth. There are
different types of mining but each come with risks. Underground coal miners are
at risk for black lung disease, explosion, or complete cave in of the entire
mine. The alternative is mountain top removal where they do exactly as it
sounds and remove the tops of mountains layer by layer in search of coal
created by decomposed organisms from hundreds of millions of years ago. This
form of mining is cheaper and safer to humans but causes huge controversy over
the devastation it leaves behind on its surrounding environment. Large gaping
holes where coal was derived is a left open and resolutions to stop mountain
top removal have only been partially successful.
Other technology
has created a way to produce energy from coal without actually burning it. This
process known as Integrated Gasification
Combined Cycle (IGCC) is more complex and costly but a successful plant
outside Tampa Florida currently converts 2,400 tons of coal into enough energy
to power 100,000 homes on a daily basis. Over a period of time the costs
involved wash out and profit can be made. Since there still aren’t laws
enforcing IGCC plants, Tampa is the only one in the U.S. and only a few more
are planned to be built out of the 80 total power plants in construction.
People focus on where they can make more money, not necessarily what’s better
for the environment and the IGCC plant construction costs 15%-20% more to build
than the others.
As the economy
and individuals become more dependent on oil, availability becomes scarce and
prices rise dramatically. In 1993 a barrel of oil could be purchased for $15,
as of 2008 barrels of oil were purchased at the unbelievable rate of $150 each!
Oil dependency not only hurts the environment but it devastates economies as
well. When this happens people begin to turn to alternative energy sources but
once given a break on barrel costs, many people immediately return to their
wasteful ways again.
Oil derived in
the U.S. is only enough to fuel our current lifestyle for about 4 years.
Therefore this oil is held on reserve for emergency and oil is bought from
outside the country. It’s a dirty job and other countries do not always
appreciate fueling our bad habits at the expense of damaging their environment.
Currently Canada is our largest producer of oil from their tar sands. Oil
shales are similar to tar sands as they both heat the kerogen to liquid
then pump it out like crude oil. Although oil shales are in layers of
sedimentary rock found in abundance in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, if an
efficient way isn’t created to derive this organic material the outcome could
be devastating to the surrounding environment.
A growing
industry of 2.2% per year is in energy found in natural gas. This industry can
be produced here in the U.S. in more abundance than crude oil, but can be just
as damaging to the environment. So the government found a way to have shipments
of liquefied gas brought over from other areas such as parts of the Middle East
and Russia. The danger of these shipments is the risk of explosion. One ship’s
explosion would have the effect of a medium size atomic bomb and therefore
finding cities willing to except these shipments can be very difficult.
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*Energy
Conservation
Our biggest hope
in reducing oil emissions is to cut back on energy wasted. A good majority of
emissions of air pollutants comes from motor vehicles. The production of more
efficient transportation has come a long way. You can now purchase a car that
can get 72 mpg highway as opposed to the average 13 mpg found in vehicles in
the 1970’s. The Obama administration also to a large step towards protecting
our environment by requiring all cars and light trucks produced to have an
average fleet fuel efficiency of 35.5 mpg by 2016. It is estimated that raising
fuel efficiency just 1 mpg on all light truck and cars could save around
295,000 bbl of oil consumed per day!
Efficient
insulation on houses and timers on appliances are just a couple ways to save a
lot of energy. You can purchase windows that are comparable to a 4” thick
insulated wall. Timers on appliances, such as hot water heaters, saves energy
by only allowing the appliance to run during off peak hours (which is usually
after 9 p.m. and before 9 a.m.) when less people are using energy or less
production of energy is needed. You can also have remote settings in which you
have the ability to control these settings from a distance, such as your cell
phone. This would allow you to leave the air conditioning off during hours
which you are not home but turn it back on within reasonable time before you
return so it has time to cool down or heat up your house. A new invention in
test right now called smart metering
was designed to relay how much energy a particular appliance utilizes and the
costs incurred during different times of the day. This could make people more
aware of their waste and help them to conserve more energy. Even though the energy intensity (or amount of
energy required to provide certain services or goods) has declined, costs to
provide the energy continue to rise the more we depend on and waste natural
resources.
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Chapter
8: Environmental Health & Toxicolgy
Case
Study: Environmental Estrogens
In 1980 a lake
in Florida suffered a DDT spill that caused a disruption in sex hormones found
by side effects apparent in their alligators. From low levels of testosterone
and shrunken penises in males to abnormal ovaries and high levels of estrogen in
females, the alligator population was dropping at a tremendous rate.
Pesticide-laden run off from a nearby farm as well contributed to high levels
of a persistent breakdown of DDT referred to as DDE found in all alligators
that were tested with abnormal sex hormones.
The alarming
question to answer now is, could this be the explanation for sex hormone
abnormalities in humans? Being humans are at the top of the food chain, it is
inevitable we will come in contact with these chemicals through consumption of
these animals. Scientists are having a difficult time proving it but continue
to research the relation this could have with human development problems and
cancer in sexual reproductive organs.
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Environmental
Health
Apparently we
are all ill to some extent according to the World Health Organization (WHO)
that defines health as not
only being absent of disease or infirmity, but being in a “state of complete
physical, mental, and social well being.” So then someone who is “unsocial” would
then be “unhealthy” and so on. The majority of the population views someone who
is carrying a virus or bound by a disease
causing impairment to be unhealthy and they do not always consider the
impairments of mental and social well being. Environmental health focuses on the factors that cause morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) from the world
we reside, such as:
*Toxins (chemicals & smoking)
*Radiation (UV Rays & Ionizing)
*Pollution (water & air)
*Infectious Agents (virus & bacteria protozoa)
*Trauma (accidents)
What wasn’t accounted
for until recently is the years of life lost to a disability. Most people do
not consider being paralyzed to a wheel chair from a car accident as “living”. Disability adjusted life years (DALY’s)
is a “health measure that assess the total burden of a disease by combining
pre-mature deaths and loss of a healthy life that result from illness or
disability.” Diseases that once were only of major concern in the wealthier
countries such as cancer or cardiovascular disease due to poor diet are now
becoming an epidemic in poorer countries as they continue to develop and adopt
the poor eating habits of others. It is predicted that by 2020 global cancer
rates will increase by 50% leaving 15 million people to suffer from this disease
and 9 million of them to die from it. WHO also foresees heart disease sky
rocketing from the 5th leading cause of death to the number 1
leading cause of death!
As developing
countries continue to adopt our bad habits, another one has recently become of
concern worldwide and that is depression. This epidemic is expected to become
the 2nd largest cause of all years lived with a disability
worldwide. Another number expected to jump from 11th place to 5th
place is obstructive living diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema, and asthma
from the growing number of tobacco users worldwide. This along with obesity
will be the contributors to the top 5 causes of death (other than traffic
accidents) including heart disease, depression, and stroke, by the year 2020.
The spread of
disease is done through pathogens
such as viruses and bacteria. Pathogens as well known as influenza and food
borne illnesses can take many forms in which some of those the body can fight
off with only mild to severe side effects while others may take thousands of
lives. With each new treatment comes its pros and cons. Some diseases such as
smallpox and polio have become unheard of, while others such as tuberculosis
are building a resistance to antibiotics and becoming even stronger. Some
disease can emerge (emergent diseases)
again after 20 or more years without any cases. New diseases such as West Nile
virus and H1N1 are also considered emergent diseases and prove how fast
diseases can spread and take lives. The most common epidemic of disease is
HIV/AIDS spreading at an alarming rate while taking an unbelievable amount of
lives in the process.
Another way to
spread to disease known as ecological
diseases is done through animals and livestock. This can not only cause
drastic population reduction of species, but also the disease and death of
humans. This can be especially dangerous when carried around by migrating birds
or in animals consumed by humans.
Both diseases
can be spread in different ways but they’ve both been proven to be more
susceptible in stressful environments that humans cause such as deforestation
and cross country travel. Since we do not predict a near future of these
practices coming to a halt, science has started testing of other approaches
referred to as conservation medicine.
This is an attempt to study how these ways affect our health in various forms.
This will hopefully help with future epidemics and outbreaks.
As doctors
continue to prescribe unnecessary or incorrect antibiotics and patients
continue to not finish full prescriptions of necessary antibiotics because they
“feel better”, resistant Methicillan
Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) grows and diseases become stronger. It is
estimated that at least 50 million antibiotic prescriptions written in the
Unites States alone are either unnecessary or not even the right type of
antibiotic to treat that particular illness. Ranchers who confine animals in
large amounts are constantly feeding animals (such as poultry, hogs, and
cattle) large amounts of steroid hormones and antibiotics to prevent any type
of pathogens from destroying/killing their “paychecks”. Once again these
antibiotics are unnecessary and when urinated out, they continue to spread in
small amounts allowing pathogens to build stronger resistance to them.
While people in
the U.S. over-use and abuse the privilege of having antibiotics at their
disposal, people in developing countries continue to spread vicious yet
treatable diseases such as HIV and parasitic diseases killing hundreds of
thousands of people every year! While around 600,000 infants acquire HIV every
year in developing countries from their mother, people in the U.S. worry about
how to treat their bald spots! Although Melinda and Bill Gates have contributed
$200 million from their own foundation to aid in medical treatments for
developing countries, the U.S. can only seem to donate .12cents per every $100
from GDP to help this cause. If apparently people dying from treatable diseases
can’t find priority on our countries agenda, a selfish way they could think of
it is those diseases can easily spread through traveling tourists and end up on
the door handle of their next rental car or in the hospital they are sent to
for routine check-ups such as mammograms, cardio testing, etc. While we have
the luxury of preventable maintenance through annual check-ups, many people in
developing countries are considered lucky to live to 30 years of age!
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Toxicology
Toxicology is
the study of poisons (toxics).
There is a long list of toxics and sadly we come in contact with more than one
of them on a daily basis! One common mistake made is the correlation between
toxic material and hazardous material. Although they can both be equally as
dangerous, not all hazardous material is toxic. Materials can be labeled
hazardous for many other reasons such as being flammable or explosive.
Toxins can be
grouped into several different categories such as teratogens which are specified to cause abnormalities during
embryonic growth and development. Some of these toxins are not intentional but
some are and many are preventable such as cigarette smoke being inhaled by the
mother either directly or indirectly. Another example would be the consumption
of alcoholic beverages during pregnancy which can cause fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome can be dangerous
to mental and behavioral development, physical craniofacial abnormalities, and
even death of the fetus.
Other toxins
include neurotoxins that
invade the nervous system killing or damaging nerve cells that are necessary
for the entire nervous system to function appropriately. Carcinogens cause out of control cell growth resulting in
malignant tumors, also known as cancer.
Cancer is currently the second highest cause of death in the U.S. and with more
than 200 million living in high areas of carcinogenic pollution, the number of
cancer patients is bound to rise. Carcinogens as well as mutagens, are high risk chemicals to unborn children.
Radiation is a well known mutagen that mutates DNA and can cause minor to
severe birth defects. This will sound familiar if you’ve ever been into any
x-ray, MRI, or CT room and the technician has asked you or someone you’re with
if there’s any possibility anyone in the room is pregnant. Some chemicals can
cause sexual dysfunction to sex hormones. These chemicals, referred to as endocrine hormone disrupters,
can interfere with normal growth, development, and physiology causing adverse
side effects such as reproductive issues in females or feminization in males.
Your body is
trained to react to foreign objects such as allergens and antigens.
These substances stimulate white blood cell counts to increase as an immune
system response to protect the body. These responses can stimulate warnings
known as sick building syndrome.
Many of these symptoms are found to be caused by poorly vented indoor air
contaminated by molds, carbon monoxide, and other toxic chemicals. Poor indoor
ventilation not only causes higher energy production estimated at $60 billion
per year, it creates the release of toxic chemicals found in insulation,
carpet, building material, plastics, and many other household objects.
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Movement,
Distribution, & Fate of Toxins
Chemicals can
travel in many different ways and can have different effects on each individual
species. Pollution is obviously the biggest risk to being exposed to deadly
chemicals and is estimated to kill approximately 3 million people every year.
Some people may not realize they’ve been exposed while others who are already
ill and weak, or children that are young and still developing, are more at risk
for serious or even fatal side effects.
There are two
different ways for chemicals to dissolve, by oil or by water. Those that
dissolve by oil will settle into the fatty lipids in our bodies where they
can’t be broken down and will continue to wreak havoc on our body. While cells
are supposed to absorb essential nutrients and minerals, those same cells may
trap harmful substances. The process of absorbing and storing molecules is
called bioaccumulation. Biomagnification is when species
on a higher trophic level consumes toxins that have been accumulated through
the food chain. As toxins build and continue to pass, through consumption by
their predators, species at the top of the food chain can suffer the adverse
side effects to their health. A well known example of this would be the release
of mercury into the air from burning coal. This contamination has caused 44
states to issue warnings against eating fish from their lakes due to the high
exposure mercury and the adverse health risks this entails.
Persistent organic pollutants
are found in many more parts of our lives than just by consumption of fish. A
few examples are upholstery cleaners such as Scotchgard, some non-stick pans
such as Teflon, PVC piping used in the construction of many buildings, many
plastics used for food storage, and it can even be traced to toys that our
children put in their mouths on a daily basis! While some states and countries
have made movement in banning the use and production of some of these
chemicals, we’re nowhere near close to removing these common chemicals from
daily contact.
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Chapter
15: Environmental Policy & Sustainability
Case
Study: Is NEPA an Impediment?
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
of 1970 was an effort to protect the environment by requiring an Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) for any major federal project that could have an impact
on the environment. The reason for implementing the EIS procedure was to force agencies
to publicly announce their plan of destruction, giving the opportunity for
citizens to state their opinions and in turn the embarrassment caused would cause
most agencies to reconsider their decisions or proposals.
NEPA doesn’t
forbid environmentally destructive activities as long as they comply with all
other laws and many agencies are taking advantage of this loop hole. Two
examples would be the “Healthy Forest Initiative” which involved logging of
forests without an ESI so citizens couldn’t appeal, and the proposal of 77,000
coal-bed wells stating that the aquifer depletion and water pollution with this
technology didn’t require review. Is this law more harmful than it is useful?
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Environmental
Policy & Law
In order to have
structure, we create policies and laws to be enforced. Laws are made by the
government to form boundaries and consequences for unlawful actions. Policies
can be made anywhere from work environments, to school environments and even in
your own home, it’s just another way to say this is how things will be done and
if they are not done this way, than this is what will happen.
Policies and
laws are formed by people with power and influence. Governmental officials can
be influenced by groups who are passionate about making a change. Once a
proposal is agreed upon then it is submitted to legislation where changes will
be made on both sides until everyone gets their “way” on the bill and it is
passed.
Bills have been
passed many times that make tremendous change, and then their importance
diminishes with time and they aren’t enforced as they should be. The EPA
enforces the environmental policy created
to protect the environment and public health. Many of these policies were
designed years ago to stop or regulate things such as unnecessary amounts of
harmful pollution emitted into the air and water we depend on. It is because of
these laws that many bodies of water have been restored to public fisheries,
but if not closely monitored, they can easily fall back to useless and
dangerous waste water areas.
Everything that
is done in our government is weighed by pros and cons and each side will have
to take some cons that please the opposing party in order to seek what they see
as beneficial in the bill. This is also called cost-benefit analysis. What’s most important in the ending
result is that the benefits outweigh the costs and this can be enforced
effectively and fairly. Coming to an agreement between opposing parties can be
very difficult. Convincing others the change is necessary because current laws
are not enough can be can be challenging when they do not understand the
severity of damage that will occur if the laws are not changed or new policies
are not made and enforced. As times change, laws and policies will need to
change as well to meet the needs of our society and environment.
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Major
Environmental Laws
President Nixon
took a huge step in cleaning up the environment by creating laws to enforce
proper disposal of waste and air pollutions. The Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1970
regulates emissions of pollutions into the air by identifying, monitoring, and
reducing air contaminants. The following is a list of the seven regulated
criteria or conventional pollutants:
*Sulfur oxide
*Lead
*Carbon monoxide
*Nitrogen oxides
*Particulates (dust)
*Volatile organic compounds
*Metals & halogens (mercury or bromine compounds)
The Clean Water
Act (CWA) of 1972 does the following:
*Establishes rules for regulating discharges of pollutants
into water
*Charges the EPA with establishing and regulating standards
for water quality
*Makes it illegal to pollute navigable waters from a point
source (such as a discharge pipe) without a permit. (page 372)
The process begins
with identifying sources of water pollutants. Once identified, regular
monitoring of control point source pollutions is necessary. End-of Pipe
discharge allows for rational discharge of low risk contaminants and must be
apprehended prior to discharge. The EPA currently monitors over 4,000 water
sheds and reports that 90% of all river miles and 87% of assessed lake acres
monitored have met their goal of being “fishable and swimmable”.
The Endangered
Species Act (ESA) of 1973 was designed to protect vulnerable, threatened, or
endangered species and their habitat. By 2010 the list of threatened or
endangered species included 1216 animals and 753 plants. The ESA encounters
much disagreement and creates crossfire with land developers. To compromise the
ESA works with home owners’ lender agreements to conserve the habitat and home
owners can even receive tax credits for cooperation.
The Superfund
Act of 1980 (as previously mentioned in chapter 13) is also known as the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
The goal of this act is to clean abandoned, hazardous sites such as gas
stations and chemical plants, funds for clean up come from taxing chemical
waste producers. Anyone with relation to the site will be held responsible for
costs but successfully retrieving all costs incurred isn’t always likely since
remediation costs range from $370 billion to $1.7 trillion. Currently the EPA
estimates over 47,000 sites need cleaned up while 1,600 sites were listed on
the National Priorities List and over 1,000 clean ups have been successfully
completed.
The National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 was created t oversee these acts by
enforcement and partnership with many other countries to be successful. They
have 3 significant responsibilities:
*Establishes the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
the oversight board for general environmental conditions
*Directs federal agencies to take environmental
consequences into account in decision making
*Requires that an Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) be published for every federal project that is
likely to have an important effect on environmental quality.
Unfortunately this doesn’t stop all destructive activities
to the environment but it does challenge the developer to a public announcement
of their plans which then causes awareness and rebuttal. In their EIS they must
include:
*Purpose and need for the project
*Alternatives to the proposed action (including taking no
action)
*A statement of positive and negative environmental impacts
of the proposed activities .
If their EIS sounds
humiliating on paper then most agencies aren’t likely to proceed. If they’re
willing to, then once publicly announced organizations against the development
will raise awareness with the negative impacts the development will cause in
attempt to stop their proposal.
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How
Are Policies Made?
All laws can be
enforced on different levels such as local state, country, and even national
laws. All laws start with a proposal which can be initiated by an individual,
group organization, or even just a petition signed by a bunch of random people
who happen to agree on a particular change. Once the group is established and
letters or petitions are organized, the proposal is submitted to your local
representative in legislation. Personal letters and even phone calls can be
very effective as well. When hearings are set, appearance helps keep you up to
date and shows you are serious on where you stand. Once a federal law (statute) is agreed upon in congress, it is then
signed by the Chief Executive (President) and becomes an official law.
The
responsibility of the judicial branch is to:
*Interpret what the precise meaning of a law is
*Decide whether or not a law was broken
*Decide whether or not a law violates the Constitution.
They oversee the cases of criminal and civil
law, also known as case law.
Civil cases are based upon disputes between individuals and corporations that
do not result in time spent behind bars. Examples would be property rights,
injury, or personal freedom. Criminal cases can result in either fines, jail
time, or both. Examples of criminal offenses would be theft, violations of
environmental law, or murder. If someone wants to dispute the legitimacy of a
law and the Constitution then the case is then turned over to the Supreme Court
for interpretation.
The Executive
Branch oversees environmental rules and policies headed by over 100 federal
agencies as well as thousands of state and local boards and commissions. This
includes NEPA, EPA, Department of Interior (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
and Department of Agriculture (Forest & Grassland). The EPA is headed by
someone appointed by the President, employs over 18,000 people and takes the
majority of responsibility for protecting the environment. This branch is
responsible for all administrative law by setting rules, deciding disputes, and
investigating misconduct.
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International
Policies
The logic behind
having international policies is that no one country can protect and provide
all of their resources used, but with trade and treaties (convention) everyone
works together to be successful. When the first Conference on Human Environment
was held 40 years ago several nongovernmental organizations and representatives
from 113 countries were in attendance. 20 years later that meeting turned into
several DOZEN nongovernmental organizations with over 110 participating
NATIONS! As more people become involved, conventions become more promptly
enforced.Iin the last 25 years over 170 conventions and treaties have been
negotiated to preserve our environment globally.
Some of the most
important collaborates include:
*Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES, 1973)
States that wild flora and fauna are an irreplaceable part
of nature for scientific, cultural, aesthetical, economical, and recreational
purposes. Exploitation through international trade amongst other human
activity, threaten certain species and this agreement is to protect their
existence.
*Montreal
Protocol (1987)
This is an agreement to take steps in depleting the use of
certain chemicals damaging to our ozone layer. Without the ozone layer to
shield the earth from the high U.V rays from the sun, life on earth would not
exist. Chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) are being replaced with
eco-friendly products and ever since, damage to the ozone layer has reduced
noticeably.
*Basel Convention
(1992)
This convention (enhanced in 1997) was created to protect
undeveloped countries from the disposal of hazardous waste created by wealthier
countries. The treaty states that each country is responsible for proper
disposal of their own waste on their own land unless agreed upon, in writing,
by authority of that country.
*UN Frameworks
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC 1994)
This was created
to share information on climate change between countries in hopes to reduce
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Kyoto
Protocol (1997) took it a step further by requiring signatories to
reduce their GHG emissions to less than 1990 levels by 2012. China and the U.S.
are the largest emitters of GHG and have not yet signed this treaty due to
economic growth and fear of not being able to obtain these goals.
Generally these
agreements cannot be enforced by sending officials of one country into another
country and forcing them to comply. Nations, countries, and states are
motivated to comply because they have an image to uphold and actions damaging
to the environment will be publicly announced which can have devastating effects
on their economy in numerous ways. Although agreements are usually understood
by all and signed by most, others may not comply and do not fear the
consequences. A good example of this would be when the U.S banned any shipments
into the country of blue fin tuna from China that was caught in a manner that
killed dolphins, or shrimp from Mexico caught in a manner that killed sea
turtles. Several countries fought back stating this movement was in
non-compliance with the World Trade Organizations (WTO’s) international trade
agreement and was represented as an illegal barrier to trade and therefore was
put to a stop.
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What
Can Individuals Do?
Almost any
aspect in life you take interest in can be used to contribute to the
environment in a beneficial way. Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle (RRR) is the most
beneficial move any individual can make no matter where they are. Using public
transit or even your two good legs for transportation whenever possible
contributes to the reduction of pollution. Author Edward Abbey once wrote:
“It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more
important to enjoy it. While it is still there. So get out there and mess
around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forest, encounter
the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet
and lucid air, it quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness,
that lovely mysterious and awesome place.” (page 379)
Thorstein Veblen created the term conspicuous consumption to define those who purchase things
of no use to them only to portray an image to others, obviously contributing to
unnecessary waste. Society feels a need to fulfill a psychological void by working
harder to make more and more to buy more “stuff” which creates the hustle and
bustle and takes away from the true meaning to life with family and friends and
doing things we enjoy. Social critics have referred to this as an affluenza. If we simplified our
lives with “necessities” as opposed to materialistic “wants” we would all be
contributing to a happier life and healthier environment.
Educating others
on the environment and what we can do to help once we’ve been educated is
crucial to the protection and sustainability of life on earth. Educators on environmental literacy range
from: biology, chemistry, geology, ecology, climatology, geography, hydrology,
and many others that are found as a paying career. Students and ordinary people
can get involved in what’s called citizen science which involves working with
real scientists to answer real scientific questions. There are many
organizations and groups dedicated to science by volunteering in beneficial
projects and research. “Former EPA administrator William K. Reilly said that
environmental literacy is essential to both stewardship of our earth and to
civic participation in general. Reilly argued that everyone needs some
environmental literacy. It isn’t enough he said “for a few specialist to know
what is going on while the rest of us wander about in ignorance.” (page
380)
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-All quotations were cited from “Environmental
Science Inquiry & Application”, Sixth Edition, Cunningham, William P.,
Cunningham, Mary Ann
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