should we care about marine biodiversity?
I started writing my marine biology paper and this is what came out. I realize that this has very little academic merit but it didn't feel like something that I could just delete. So here it is, on my LJ that I update twice a year. Enjoy :)
From the perspective of a university student who has grown up in a middle class home in the western world it is becoming more and more apparent to me that we, the western world, believe that we have the right to whatever we want. We do not have to experience first hand what effects our consumerism has on the environment and on other less fortunate people in the world. If we are hungry, we need only to drive to the grocery store and buy the item of our desire. Biodiversity and sustainability are complex issues that need to be addressed, however, the problems of over-consumption and environmental destruction and degradation can only be remediated if we, as consumers, agree to give something up today. It seems to me that it is simply easier to continue taking from the earth’s resources, knowing that our practices are unsustainable, knowing that we will at some point in the future be denied something we desire, than to admit we are doing something wrong and choose to change before it is too late. Making our planet sustainable is possible, conserving biodiversity is possible, but we have to choose to do so. Each and every person on the planet has the choice. What choice will you make?
From the perspective of a university student who has grown up in a middle class home in the western world it is becoming more and more apparent to me that we, the western world, believe that we have the right to whatever we want. We do not have to experience first hand what effects our consumerism has on the environment and on other less fortunate people in the world. If we are hungry, we need only to drive to the grocery store and buy the item of our desire. Biodiversity and sustainability are complex issues that need to be addressed, however, the problems of over-consumption and environmental destruction and degradation can only be remediated if we, as consumers, agree to give something up today. It seems to me that it is simply easier to continue taking from the earth’s resources, knowing that our practices are unsustainable, knowing that we will at some point in the future be denied something we desire, than to admit we are doing something wrong and choose to change before it is too late. Making our planet sustainable is possible, conserving biodiversity is possible, but we have to choose to do so. Each and every person on the planet has the choice. What choice will you make?