Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Biodiversity: Has the Earth Had Enough?

This article was written by Brent McKinney
Biodiversity“Has Nature Had Enough?"
This week’s paper is going to cover the biodiversity and the topics related to is such as conservation, presentation and ethical obligations.I have to be honest with you and tell you that I did not even know what biodiversity was until I started doing research for this paper, and after doing some initial reading I was still confused with what biodiversity actually is. I found a description that defined biodiversity as “the variety of life on earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that sustain it”. (http://cnx.org/content/). From the reading that I have done it seems that biodiversity relates to all forms of life from ecosystems to genes and species. The question is how do we get society to integrate conservation of biodiversity? So much of our society today revolves around money, it does not matter what area of our economy that you focus on, it is all about the almighty dollar. The problem with this is, that lost in the focus to make money is what effect is this causing on our earth and the ecosystems that revolve around it. We are using up our natural resources at an alarming rate and not enough people seem to be taking notice of it. We continue to pump millions of barrels of oil from the earth, and the search is on for additional supplies to tap into next. The hybrid technology is gaining momentum in many countries, including the US, but is this going to be enough to sustain fossil fuel products in the future? As the oil companies continue to have profits into the 100’s of billions of dollars, you have to wonder if they have any concerns about the futures of there kid’s, grandkids? What is going to be left 100 years from now? What about our forest? Hopefully we can continue to log off and replant the forest so that it will be around in the future. With the population growing at the rate it is, will there be enough area for everyone to live and still keep our ecosystem in place? Due the questions over whether the dams kill the fish outweigh the hydro-electric power that we gain? This is a debate that will continue, will people realize that we need the dams to help control river flooding in all of the low lying wet land areas that have been converted to residential or commercial use. I guess that we will never know, and that appears to be the mentality of people today, live for today and cash in, and let the future generations worry about how they are going to deal with what is left.When God created the heavens, earth and man, he gave man the power to use the land for his needs. In the beginning man was taking from the earth for his needs and that of his family or tribe, but today it seems that money has overshadowed what is written in the bible about taking care of and respecting the land, and having ethical models for living respectfully with nature. Nature has spiritual powers and commands respect, and I have to wonder if nature has had enough and now it making man pay for its abuse. When we look at all the flooding from a few weeks ago that led to landslides that could be caused due to logging tree’s from hillsides or lighting started fires, is this nature’s way of clearing forest land? We have had the earthquakes that have caused such tragedy, there was the awful drought in the southeast and at the same time we had wildfires burning in California. We have had volcanic eruptions, tornado’s, hurricanes that have led to loss of lives and changed the lives of thousands of people forever. I thank God that our families have never been affected with loss of life’s during any of these events; we have had droughts that we suffered through while growing up on our dry land wheat ranch in north central Oregon, when prayers were not answered with rain to help save the crops. I have always wondered why these things happen in nature? We were taught that something good comes out of something bad, but so many times I am left wondering why god would allow this to happen to his earth and his people? Has god had enough and these events happen to make people more aware? Would it help if we had some sort of ethical of social model for living respectfully with nature? What does the future hold for earth and the people who occupy it? Will people learn to respect and give back to the land, or continue to reap the rewards of nature and bring mother nature to her knees? Hopefully we will have a ringside seat in heaven to see what will become of this incredible earth.
References:
EPA (2008) Retrieved January 18, 2008 from http://cnx.org/content/

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