Solving the Equation: Earth Plus Humanity
Solving the Equation: Earth Plus Humanity
Solving the Equation: Earth plus Humanity
We all want to live in an untainted, unadulterated, unpolluted world where our resources arise in abundant supply. We don’t want our water to be full of impurities such as waste products, both natural and generic, for this leads to illnesses and calls for even more funding in medical provisions, not to mention the overwhelming inconvenience it produces as was seen in the Woburn case where supposedly the water had caused several children to develop Leukemia because of chemical dumps carried out by powerful, industrial companies. We don’t want adulterated soil where we cannot grow trees or build upon because of landfills taking up far too much space and plaguing the earth itself and we definitely do not want for our homes to be placed next to such landfills because consumption runs just as high as our rapidly growing population. And as far as pollution goes, I think everyone agrees it must take its leave for it does far too much harm. The term pollution itself refers to the “fouling” of the air we breathe, water we drink, and land we cultivate and erect institutions upon (Columbia Encyclopedia, 1). And lastly, we all want to live in a world where our resources are endless and we may consume as much as we please; a world where waste is compacted and stored in remote areas and civilization is doing all it can to renew all of our resources by developing better environmental technologies and planting and regenerating a great deal of mother nature’s bounty by growing trees, gathering more livestock, etc. But, is all this possible?
This picture-perfect world would be made up by a deep respect for the natural world and for each other. This world would be a considerate one where people wouldn’t take half-hour showers and wouldn’t be upgrading to newer things replacing the practical in order to protect the sanctity of the resources used to make such and would much rather spend their money on helping the disadvantaged. These arguments can be seen by two scholarly, accomplished men: Peter Singer, a professor of Bioethics for Princeton University, and Alan Durning, a full-time researcher for the Worldwatch Institute. As far as the social landscape of this world would go, everyone will have the realization that another culture is no more superior nor inferior just because it is different, rather everyone will consider there to be only but humanity where everyone must help each other to thrive otherwise we will all compete and will purposely consume our resources faster to have a claim to even more. And when one country has a certain “know how,” say crafting an efficient system of water supply pipes, this knowledge should be passed on to other nations so as to facilitate their nation’s demands more competently, and in this case so there is water enough water left to sustain a bustling society such as that of today’s India in desperate times. Also, at the individual level, everyone needs to learn to be considerate and not spend too much time in showers, not produce so much waste, etc. This saves our resources and allows for our benevolent Earth to thrive so we may use more of its bounty which will later allow for us to use more.
As far as the natural landscape goes, as mentioned before, this ideal world would have much patience and wait upon nature to renew its resources before we take up too much and find ourselves in the irreversible predicament where we take too much and lose our reserves so as to the point where we are no longer able to manufacture our goods and provide sustenance for the generations yet to come. Because this world would be using nature’s capital so very responsibly, the world would be a lush and bountiful environment made up of all terrains in all entirety with the exception of where current human civilization already exists. Also, current civilization will not call for expansion or more resources if humanity is able to control its rapidly growing population. The population can be controlled if people are to learn the consequences of larger families and the importance of contraceptives and the like.
Although I have mentioned general possible solutions in the type of world we wish to live in, there are some practical solutions we can commit to today to help us in the future.
First of all, I wish for everyone to consider the solutions I made above and translate them into practical solutions to be undertaken in today’s world for today’s world. It’s important that we conserve our current resources and not be plagued by over-consumption; this way, we will actually have something left over for the future. And we desperately need to address our overcrowding issue. As Garret Hardin, a professor and ecologist, points out in his piece “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor,” the developing nations of the world are increasing in number far faster than