The Destruction of the Environment - Essay Example

Introduction: On most occasions, environmentalist, and government agencies tell us on the benefits of conserving the environment. This is because the world is witnessing a series of environmental destructions, which range from destruction of forests, pollution of rivers, lakes and air. People argue that it is important to preserve the environment because they play a big role in sustaining the lives of individuals. For examples, trees help in the formation of rainfall, which is an essential requirement for agriculture to survive. Forests are natural habitats of animals, and on this basis, destroying forests, will mean the destruction of wild animals. This in turn will disrupt the environmental eco-system (Brooks, 2010). Despite the importance of conserving the environment, most people still engage in its destruction. The reasons advanced for their participation in destroying the environment are, poverty, population growth, and search of income. This paper identifies the reasons as to why people still engage in the destruction of the environment, despite the important role that the environment plays in our society. Search for sources of income/ revenue: Search for sources of revenue and income is one of the major factors that lead to the destruction of the environment. Take for example oil exploration and mining is a factor that makes people to destroy the environment (Tisdell, 2005). Oil is an important natural resource that all most all the economies of the world need. Oil is needed to drive the transportation industry, which is essential for the growth of a country’s economy (Leydesdorff, 2007). Oil plays a big role in employing millions of people all over the world, and countries such as Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, Libya, etc depend on oil production to sustain their economies. This is because oil is the major source of foreign revenue for these countries (Tachibana, 2000). It is important to denote that oil exploration and mining play a great role in the destruction of the environment. Oil has the capability of destroying the lives of animals, and human beings. Take for instance the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill which was responsible for leaking approximately 60,000 barrels of oil into the ocean (Harper and Fletcher, 2011). This had an effecting of killing sea animals, which included dolphins, sea turtles, whales, etc. This oil spill was mainly caused because of oil exploration by BP Oil Company. The reason of these explorations was to mine oil, for commercial purposes. Petroleum companies are also accused of dumping toxic oil wastes on nearby rivers and waters. This has a cause of polluting the environment, and destroying the lives of marine animals living in these water systems (Imanaka, 1997). Petroleum companies are commercial companies, whose main aim is to sale oil products for purposes of making profits, and revenues. Income earnings and revenue is not only restricted to oil exploration, but also to the destruction of forests, and killing of wild animals. For example, people cut down trees for purposes of getting wood. Wood is used to make timber, a resource that is used to manufacture chairs, and building of houses (Colson, 2011). These are for commercial purposes. The killing of wild animals is also carried out for purposes of making earning an income, and due to poverty. For example, poachers usually kill elephants and rhinos for their tusks, and horns. Elephant Tusks are always sold in Asia, and are used as beauty products, and for purposes of making medicine. The same happens to the horns that poachers get from rhinos. Population Growth: Population growth is also another factor that deters the conservation of the environment (Newing, 2010). Because of population growth, mankind has been forced to look for other places of residence (Likar, 2011). This will make them to clear and destroy forests, as a result leading to the destruction of trees, and disruption of the eco-system. As noted earlier, forests are habitats of wild animals, and birds. Destroying forests will lead to the death of some of these animals, because they may not find other habitats. The destruction of forests is not the only negative environmental damage that population growth causes. Due to the high number of people, there is the overconsumption of natural resources such as water, oil, food, and even land (Imanaka, 1997). This results to making these resources scarce. Scarcity of these environmental resources might lead to unhealthy competition amongst people, in order to access the resources under consideration. People also emit waste products, because of their consumption activities. This includes water, and air pollutants, toxic waste material, excess nutrients, and green house gases. Waste substances such as untreated sewage may lead to the destruction of an individual’s health. Other waste products, such as excessive nitrogen have an impact of causing the blooming of algals, in water supplies. This will lead to the depletion of oxygen, leading to the death of marine animals such as fish (Calhoun, 2005). To protect the environment by limiting the growth of the environment, countries such as China have adopted the one child policy. This is whereby all couples are forced to bear to give birth to only one child. India also has such kind of a policy, and the main aim of introducing these types of policy is to reduce the population growth of individuals (Environmental issues. 2010). There has also been some artificial method of controlling population growth, and this includes the use of family planning methods (Chancellor, 2009). As a method of controlling the population growth in their countries, government usually encourage the use of family planning methods. Poverty: Poverty is also another factor that makes people to destroy the environment. In most countries of the world, specifically in the developing countries, there is the destruction of grazing lands, soil and forests because of over grazing. These methods are always efficient in controlling the population of a state, and hence protecting an environment. As the growth rate of poverty increases, people destroy the environment faster, and more quickly. The people over use the environment, such as soil, land and forests, because they do not have other sources of income, except by using the natural resources under their reach (Harper and Fletcher, 2011). It is important to denote that because of poverty, the poor will use the natural resources under their reach for purposes of satisfying their basis needs. This will include fetching and using firewood to cook, overusing land for agricultural production, and use of wild plants and water for medicine (Canavari and Food, 2002). Poor people lack good and better education which can help them to secure good jobs and sources of income. On this basis, they lack the quality of life that can make them to use electricity for cooking purposes, or for other sectors of their domestic life (Michna, 2010). Electricity can help in limiting the firewood business that these people engage in. This is because individuals will not depend on firewood as their sources of energy. To tackle poverty, the various governments need to enact policies aimed creating employment, and improving the education system of a state. The government can encourage the use of their craft skills in helping the poor to earn income (Hambler, 2004). But this should occur in a manner that is suitable for the preservation of the environment. To deal with poverty, policies from the government are not sufficient. The government needs to partner with private institutions and non-governmental organizations for purposes of encouraging them to educate people on the various ways of tackling poverty (Takeuchi, 2006). This will be effective because non-governmental organizations normally have an access to the people, because of their grass root connections. The poor can be educated on the importance of preserving the environment (Graetz, 2011). This will make the poor to have knowledge on the benefits of the environment, making them to use the natural resources under their reach in a sustainable method. Conclusion: In conclusion, poverty, search for income, and population growth are some of the factors that encourage people not to engage in pro-environmental measures. As discussed in this paper, due to poverty, people will seek to inappropriately use the environment for purposes of sustaining themselves. This includes cutting of forests for purposes of getting timber, over-using the land resource under their possession, for agricultural purposes, and over-grazing. However, with the use of appropriate government policy, it is possible to reduce the levels of poverty within a state. Search for income is another reason for depletion of the environment, and this normally takes the form of explorations and mining. This is a very difficult issue to solve, because governments are always in a dilemma. That is, whether to stop the explorations or whether to continue with the explorations. Stopping the exploration will mean losing a source of revenue, while continuing with the exploration will mean destroying the environment. Population growth on the other hand is easy to solve. All that a state needs to do is to create a policy limiting the number of children an individual can give birth to. References: Brooks, J. S. (2010). Economic And Social Dimensions Of Environmental Behavior: Balancing Conservation And Development In Bhutan. Conservation Biology, 24(6), 1499-1509. Calhoun, Y. (2005). Conservation. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. Canavari, M., & Food, A. (2002). Economic studies on food, agriculture and the environment: Joint Conference on Food, Agriculture, and the Environment, Bologna, Italy, June 12- 14, 2001. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Chancellor, D. (2009). Food waste. London: Wayland. Colson, M. (2011). The environment. Chicago, Ill.: Raintree. Environmental issues. (2010). New Delhi: IFA Publications. Graetz, M. J. (2011). The end of energy the unmaking of Americas environment, security, and independence. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Hambler, C. (2004). Conservation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Harper, C. L., & Fletcher, T. H. (2011). Environment and society: human perspectives on environmental issues (Canadian ed.). Toronto: Pearson Canada. Imanaka, T. (1997). Global environment. How protect and foster? Interaction between environment and organisms. Both environment and organisms keep on changing.. Kagaku to Seibutsu, 35(3), 178-181. Leydesdorff, L. (2007). Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design as a journal: the interdisciplinarity of its environment and the citation impact. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 34(5), 826-838. Likar, L. E. (2011). Eco-warriors, nihilistic terrorists, and the environment. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger. Michna, J. (2010). Risk management on energy and enviromental conservation in CCE countries. New York: Heinmman. Newing, H. (2010). Interdisciplinary training in environmental conservation: definitions, progress and future directions. Environmental Conservation, 37(04), 410-418. Tachibana, H. (2000). Engineering prospect for environment in 2000. Prospect of sound environment. Technological review of sound environment.. Journal of Environmental Conservation Engineering, 29(2), 149-156. Takeuchi, K. (2006). Hydrology combining global environment and human environment. Proceedings of the Symposium on Global Environment, 14, 307-307. Tisdell, C. A. (2005). Economics of environmental conservation (2nd ed.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Pub.. Read More