When most people think of “going green,” usually the first thought that comes into their mind is pollution, global warming, or recycling; however, for me, the first thought that comes into my head is natural resource depletion. If you are unfamiliar with the term, you might ask, “What is natural resource depletion?” And to me that is a decent question, because it can mean so many different things. Did you know that a study was done in 1995, and if all the edible food that was just thrown out in the world were recovered, it would be enough food to feed 4 million people for one day? Alongside with food, we have been destroying many of the natural resources, and just have been destroying the earth in general. Studies show that we are cutting down an estimated three to six billion trees per year. These trees could be cutting down on pollution by extracting carbon dioxide from the air. Luckily, technology is beginning to help us out the with the paper pollution issue. Our society is much different than say that of the 90’s when it comes to use of paper. Newspaper companies are having trouble staying in business with the growing number of people with Internet access, students are beginning to type up their notes in computers, and e-mail has taken the place of most letters. Although the tree depletion problem seems to be getting solved, there are many other resources that aren’t. Oil is probably the center of today’s economy, and we are currently at war because of oil. We are currently drilling for oil, and are destroying the natural habitat of much of the Middle East. The emissions that cars produce from the oil are polluting the air, and oil tanker spills have polluted the waters. This air pollution is causing the ice caps to melt and we are destroying yet another natural resource because of our society’s dependency on oil. I believe an all around effort needs to be made in order to stop depleting the natural resources that God gave us. We need to start being better stewards of the earth, and caring for all that we have been given. It starts locally, with recycling, and garbage clean up, but we need scientists to come up with alternate energy sources so we can stop destroying the Middle East in this oil hunt. Progress is being made though; scientists are currently testing out a car that can travel 1,000 miles on a single gallon of gas. Although this technology won’t become available to the common person for a while, that is the type of things we need to produce if we would like to save this earth.
-C.T.
This post was extremely informative! I knew that people wasted a lot but I had no idea the numbers were as large as they are. I agree that we do need to make more of an effort, as stewards of the Earth, to waste much less and reuse much more. People need to take much better care of the natural resources God has given to us. Because of technology, advances have been made so that we do not have to waste as much paper and cut down as many trees as we once did, but more needs to be done for the other natural resources that people are wasting on a daily basis. E-mailing something instead of mailing it on paper can save paper and walking or riding a bike when you need to go somewhere local can save gasoline, these are such easy ways to save our natural resources.
ReplyDelete-B.S.
i think chris is right. natural resource depletion is a huge problem. tons of different types of trees are being cut down everyday to make paper, homes and create more land. the world's rainforests are suffering also since they are being destroyed, too.
ReplyDeleteNot only are natural resources being depleted, but so are entire ecosystems as the rainforests are being cleared. birds and other animals are being killed and displaced from their natural habitats due to this clearing. more importantly, many plant species are dying and becoming extinct. you may not think this is a very big problem, but it must be put into perspective: hundreds of different medicines that are prescribed on a regular day-to-day basis are made using different extracts from different parts of wild-growing, rainforest plants. there may be cures to diseases such as HIV, Alzheimer's, or even cancer, that are contained in the plant extracts but we'll never know if they're killed due to resource depletion and forest clearing. so save the rainforest. and all trees. and habitats. and stop using resources. well don't stop completely, but stop doing it so readily.
-JM
I agree with everyone. There are so many things we can do but a lot of people do not know where to start. I really hope that when people read this blog they find it as inspirational as we do. I hope people realize how real this is. For example, in the Wall-E movie they had no idea how precious and sacred their world was until it was gone.There needs to be less words and more action. It sounds really good talking about what we can and should do but it does us no good if we do not actually go out there and do something about it. I hope there are more groups out there that are concered about our plant as much as we are.
ReplyDeletei agree with everyone, natural resource depletion is a huge problem we are faced with. there are so many things we can do to help with this problem, but i do not think people know where to start. it is not a problem that is emphasized on. thanks to technology, changes are occuring - many just are unaware. trees are being saved thanks to the internet. the internet is just one way people can help save natural resources, rather than buying a newspaper people are now able to be more green and read the same news paper online. although this may be creating a problem with news paper companies, it is a sign of the times and they will just have to learn to adapt. -Alyssa
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