View
on How Society Can Assess Natural Resources.
The
society can assess natural resources by getting educated on the things that
they can do that do not cost them a lot of money. This can be done by joining
groups or organizations that help to educate the consumer on the natural
resources that are available or searching on line and reading up on the various
things. During the time that I have come back to school I have learned a lot on
various subject in classes. One being small space gardening and what it can do
for not only the consumer to grow healthy food but help the environment with
being self-sustainable. This is not something that the government is involved
in, but if you can build a high rise to provide clean air, food, water and a
home for the people that are living there, as a world it can be done to help
all of us, no policies directly involved but it will help all policies that are
trying the same to help the world.
Policy
does play a central role in how we address environmental problems. (Page 164)
Policies have to be made so that there is some guide line for people to follow.
We have become a society of followers that need the guidance to accomplish
tasks. Without guide line the entire world would be in a major disarray. No one
would know what to do to help situations that happen. To me this is what has
happened in the world already, for years there were not many restrictions on
the pollutants that fill our air from manmade machines, now we are paying for
it by having regulations in place.
Some
people may question should government have the ability to restrict development
in areas where erosion, storms and flooding pose a risk to life and property.
(Page 171) If they had made some of the restrictions to in these areas we would
have been able to reduce the number of lives lost and property damage that has
happen over the years. Look at the landslide in Oso, WA, if the building
department had not issued the building permits to build the houses in the slide
zone hundreds of people’s lives would have been spared and the personal
property damage would not have happened. There would have been the natural
damage that happened to the forest, but that is what keeps the eco system going
and healthy. Polices to control some things need to happen for safety reasons,
but when they start controlling your life personally that is a different story.
Human
population is higher in some areas of the world than others. What has caused
them to grow fast? To me it is that we just keep clearing the lands to make
more room for people and do not look at the economic effect that it has had or
is having. Looking at the “One-Child Policy” that China has implemented may
make you stop and think is this really what needs to be done. With the People’s
Republic of China being the world’s most populated nation they had to look at
doing something due to running out of room and resources. (Page 189) With this
policy they are now trying to help not only to improve the lifestyle of
citizens, but the health issues that the population have due to the growth. As
Bill Gates stated “As you improve health in a society, population growth goes
down…Before I learned about it, I thought it was paradoxical.” (page189).
The
only thing that can be done going forward is to look at the problems, evaluate
them and act on the evaluation. Hopefully with our new knowledge we can only go
forward not backwards for future generations.
References
Withgott,
J., & Laposata, M. (2013). Environment: the science behind the stories (5th
Ed.) New York, NY. Person Benjamin Cummings, ISBN-13:978-0-321-89742-8.
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