The Future of Our Society!

The Future of our Society Summary
By Nicole Phillips & Angela Ober
PHS 100: Online Environmental Studies
Dr. David Terrell
Warner Pacific College
October 8, 2009

The future of our society primarily rests on the shoulders of mankind as we decide how to conserve and sustain the Earth’s resources such as water, food, land, electricity, and fuel for transportation. It is only a matter of time before we will be facing depletion, on larger scales, of many of our resources including food, fresh water, and oil. The United States alone consumes far more resources than any other nation on earth, and well surpasses their ability to reproduce these sources before have been consumed. With this being said, what will the world look like in years to come? Will we deplete our land in entirety or will we learn how to conserve and sustain before it is too late?
In our PowerPoint presentation for this week we selected five main resources to focus on, and are discussing how we currently make use of these resources, and what we believe the future will look like in regards to these specific resources. The resources we selected were fuel and transportation, electricity, food, water, and land. Ultimately our focus throughout is on how we, as individuals, can learn to conserve energy on a greater scale and sustain resources for future generations. It is a scary thought to think that these next few years could be the end of it all, and I do not believe that we, as a society, are prepared to face the challenges that may arise. We do not know what the future holds, yet with the knowledge we do have we must learn how to become better stewards of our land. Ways in which we can do this include using mass transit for transportation, relying on renewable and new resources to provide energy to heat our homes and water; eat less and share more, reduce and lessen our water use, and preserve our land rather than stripping it of fossil fuels and cramming it full of housing and new developments.
Ultimately the future of our resources might mean that we must learn how to downsize and decrease our demand, and live simply again. For Americans this may be especially hard since we are a land full of takers, but it is possible in crisis times to change our ways and learn how to survive on less. The future may hold world wars, economic crisis, and land battles- but we do not know for certain. What we do know is that it is our responsibility to take charge now of what we can and prepare for the future, focusing on how we can make Earth a better place for generations to come. The end goal is sustainability; the daily plan is to conserve and preserve that which we have access to now.