Environmental Issues - Research Paper Example

Running head: Environmental Issues Environmental Issues Introduction Environmental problems are growing as fast as the industrial developments. Every advance in industrial field is creating some kind of environmental problems. Some of the environmental problems will be visible immediately whereas some others will catch our attention after some time only. For example, when plastic materials were invented, many people thought it was a great discovery because of the immense advantages and convenience associated with it. But now the world has realized the environmental problems caused by the plastic materials because of the toxic contents inside it. Same way, when automobiles were introduced in our world, it was visualized as a great achievement and only recently we came to know about the environmental pollution caused by the toxic gases liberated by the automobile engines. In short, most of the environmental problems are caused as a result of the injudicious and visionless human activities alone. This paper briefly analyses the problems caused to the environment due to human activities. Environmental problems Winter & Koger (2003) have argued that the environmental crisis is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit. In their opinion, endangered wild life human made ugliness and pollution are only part of it, but more importantly this crisis is concerned with the kind of creatures we are (Winter & Koger 2003, p.1). When we think about environmental problems, we often think about the global warming, wild life problems, deforestation, atmospheric temperature rise etc. We know that all these problems are caused by the visionless activities of the human alone. But there is no point in simplifying such human activities as a mistake made by the human. In fact the innate traits of human are a motivating factor for them to exploit the environment as much as possible. When God created Adam, He told Adam that the whole things in this world are given to him except the fruit of a particular tree. The exploitation of the environment started from there. Even though, ancient human was so particular in protecting the environment, the current generation is not much bothered about such things and engages in activities which destroy the environment. We should have a strong moral commitment towards the environment in which we are living. We should remember that we have ethical commitments not only to the living things, but also to the nonliving things as well. Environmental ethics is a branch of philosophy evolved in the latter half of the twentieth century. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2002), environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to the environment and its nonhuman contents (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2002). Most of the people have the belief that human is the most important and precious creatures in this world and all the other living and nonliving things are created for assisting the human life in different ways. But the above thinking has resulted in severe environmental problems and during the latter half of the twentieth century, environmentalists and other social scientists started to spread the message of the importance of protecting our environment. The sustainability of human life on earth rests on three pillars, environment, economics and social justice (Wagner & Sanford 2009, p.21). Among the three listed above environment seems to be the most important one. It is a fact that we need fresh air and a balanced climate to protect our lives. Unethical exploitation of the environment results in severe problems like global warming, climate changes, sea level rise etc. We often forget the fact that the ownership of our nature rests not only on us but to all the living things in this world. In other words, we are polluting a property in which other living things also have claims. During my childhood, the land near my home was a paddy field and a small river filled with plenty of variety fishes divided these paddy fields into two segments. Beautiful birds like parrots, king fisher, swan, mynah, stork etc were common visitors to the paddy field and river. Now some industries were established on this land and the industrial wastes are dumped into this river. We were taking bath in this river during our childhood and many people used this water for washing purpose, but it is impossible for us to use this water either for bathing or any other purposes now because of the heavy pollution. It is difficult to see any fishes in this river at present. Earlier fishing was a big hobby for us and now it is impossible for us to even wash our hands or legs in this river. The regular visitors of the paddy field and river, the birds are not seen even in the distant vicinity. Commercialization has conquered all the aspects of human life at present. The thirst for making money has resulted in people engage in all sorts of activities which destroy the environment. Harte (2001) has mentioned that economic activities like coal burning have larger impact on environment (Harte, 2001, p.56). It is a fact that we facing severe energy crisis at present. Conventional energy sources were already exhausted because of the heavy exploitation. In search of fresh energy sources, the negative impacts caused to the environment at the time of processing the energy is often been forgotten. People are always looking for the immediate goals and they will never look at the future problems while satisfying their immediate needs. Greenhouse gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone etc are causing the phenomenon of greenhouse effect in our atmosphere. Greenhouse effect is a process in which the energy radiations which should leave our atmosphere will be absorbed by the greenhouse gases. The inability of these toxic energy radiations to escape from our atmosphere because of the excessive absorption by the increased content of greenhouse gases in atmosphere resulted in these radiations reflected in all directions or send back to the earth’s surface. These radiations reflected back to our earth is causing temperature rise in our atmosphere. The major liberators of greenhouse gases are automobiles, processing of coal and oil like bio-fuels, industrial units etc. The diagram given below shows the relative importance of the major human-produced greenhouse gases to current warming. CO2 is the most important followed in descending order by methane, CFCs, ozone and nitrous oxide. (National Academy of Sciences, 2010) HOTZ (2010) has mentioned a study which is going on at present at Antarctica; American researchers have constructed a towering drill that, like a biopsy needle, periodically plunges thousands of feet into the ice to extract an exotic marrow of frozen gases and isotopes Their work could settle a central question in the dispute over climate change, by documenting how greenhouse gases influenced temperatures in the past. Only then can researchers accurately analyze climate changes that may be under way today (HOTZ, 2010) It is a fact that many people still have doubts over the role of manmade activities on environmental problems. Some of them believe that the current atmospheric problems or global warming is not because of manmade activities alone. In their opinion, sun is the major villain in raising the atmospheric temperature. They argue that the atmospheric temperature rise is evident not only in earth, but in other planets as well and those planets may not have living things. In other words, they believe that sun causes the global warming problems. Dr Sami Solanki (Director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany) has argued that the sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. In his opinion, the sun is burning more brightly for the last 1000 years so that temperature of the atmosphere of earth which is one of the receivers of the solar radiations goes on increasing gradually. Other studies have also shown that the atmospheric temperature and ice melting is not confined to earth alone, but it occurs on other planets as well. NASA has recently proved that Jupiter’s climate is also undergoing drastic changes (The Global Warming Scam). Even though there are different opinions about the culprits of environmental problems, it is a fact that the environment undergoes severe changes over the last few centuries and the human share in causing environmental problems cannot be underestimated. The current generation is more aware of the negative impacts caused to the environment by the visionless activities. In America, president Obama already announced rebates to those who purchase environmental friendly cars in exchange of their old cars which is causing severe damages to the environment. The Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came into exist in 2008 and will end in 2012. This protocol was signed in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to an average of five percent to the 1990 emission levels (Kyoto Protocol, n. d). By 2012, the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming will runs out and to keep the process on the line there is an urgent need for a new climate protocol and the 2009 conference in Copenhagen was aimed for that. Around 8000 representatives from 170 countries participated in the Copenhagen conference including governmental representatives, NGO's, journalists and others (Copenhagen 2009: Climate Conference in Copenhagen, 2009) Conclusions Our nature has a balance or equilibrium and any activities which damage this balance or equilibrium of the nature may invite future problems to the living things on earth. Some of our activities may bring temporary gains to us; but such activities may cause severe damages to us in future. Even though some people believe that environmental problems are caused by solar variations, it is a fact that we are contributing heavily to this problem. The current generation has realized the importance of environmental protection and many countries already took some measures to protect the environment. Kyoto protocol is one such measure taken collectively by different nations and apart from that most of the countries have their own domestic laws now with respect to environmental protection. It is unethical to cause damages to the environment, which is providing everything needed for our survival here on earth. Recommendations Environmental problems cannot be tackled by the government alone. Environmental protection is the responsibility of every individual in the world. We should give priorities to the environment in which we are living and we should remember that any injudicious activities from our side not only cause problems to us, but cause problems to the future generation as well. It is better to use line buses for our travel needs instead of using own cars to travel from one place to another. A little pain we take during our stay in this world may prevent severe pains of the future generation. Our environment is not our private property. It is the property of the future generation also. We have no right to pass a polluted environment to the future generation. Deforestation is another major cause of environmental problems. Plants have the ability to absorb carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and destruction of plants may result in increased content of CO2 in atmosphere which may cause atmospheric temperature rise. Most of the energy production processes are causing damages to the environment and we should reduce our energy consumption as much as possible or we should find out alternate environment friendly energy sources for our energy needs. References 1. Copenhagen 2009: Climate Conference in Copenhagen, (2009), Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://www.erantis.com/events/denmark/copenhagen/climate-conference-2009/index.htm 2. Harte J (2001), Consider a Cylindrical Cow: More Adventures in Environmental Problem Solving Publisher: University Science Books (February 15, 2001) 3. HOTZ R. L, 2010, Mining for Cold, Hard Facts, The Wall Street journal , Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704655004575114010457906340.html?KEYWORDS=environmental+problems 4. Kyoto Protocol, (n. d), Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php 5. National Academy of Sciences, (2010), CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gas Variations, Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/causes02.jsp?PF=1 6. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (2002), Environmental ethics, Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ 7. The Global Warming Scam (n. d) Retrieved on 5 June 2010 from http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming.html 8. Winter D.D & Koger S. M (2003), › Visit Amazon's Deborah Du Nann Winter Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central The Psychology of Environmental Problems: Psychology for Sustainability, Publisher: Psychology Press; 2 edition (October 1, 2003) 9. Wagner T. P., & Sanford R (2009), Environmental Science: Active Learning Laboratories and Applied Problem Sets Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (January 27, 2009) Read More