Reading Summaries:
1) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
This reading is about the impact humans have on their societies and complexity of a societies collapse. It demonstrates that there simply is no black and white answer to the demise of a society. It stresses the human impact on the environment and how it could contribute to OUR societies potential future collapse. Which brings me to the critical thinking question; Are societies that damage their environment doomed to collapse? Is ours? The most simple answer to this question is, yes. All actions have their consequences and judging by the way we live our lives today we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are too uneducated on how to undo or cease what harm we are causing to our environment, how we've contributed to the warming of our planet and how we've increased climate change. No society is safe from a collapse, especially any that exist in our damaged world today.
2)Human Carrying Capacity
This reading is about the earth, it's resources that support us, how population growth effects the planet and what the planet itself can support in regards to human population. Critical thinking question number one asks: what is carrying capacity? Carrying capacity is the amount of humans that the earth can support.
3)Tragedy of the Commons
This reading is about the fact that the human race believes that everything, including our impact on the planet can be solved with the development of more technology. It stresses that humans tend to add more thinking that it outweighs the damage; what we have forced the earth to lack. The truth is the more we add is the more we take away. There is no give and take it is just take in the end. Question one asks: why should people not have as many children as possible? This again plays in to the fact that the more we add, the more we take away. More people equals the more resources needed from the planet to allow those people to survive. With the rate that humans over use their resources and take more than is needed to survive, the less there will ultimately be for future generations. Human beings are digging themselves deeper and deeper in to a hole and one day, we will find the bottom. What will we do then?
Activity- Spend one hour in silence with nature.
For this activity I went out to spend some time on my family's farm. I strayed from the borders of our property to the rows of trees that surround a small dirt road. As a child I spent many hours walking along and exploring this area. This experience to me is unlike any other. I observed the changes that have come to the area throughout my life time such as the removal of some trees and the addition of gravel to this once natural dirt path. I listened to the crickets and the wind as it rustled through the leaves of this "tree tunnel" as I used to see it as a child. I noticed the leaves and all their glory as they had already began to change colour with the season. I noticed a lack of animal prints (deer, raccoon) in the moist dirt, but also observed an abundance of birds within the trees. What once was a pathway that always encompassed you with shade, despite the time of day, now allowed for the sunlight to shine through in many places.
This experience really opened up my eyes to just how much a small and deeply loved piece of nature can change over the course of 10 years. While revisiting one of my favourite places this brought me immense amounts of joy, but also sadness for the fact that one day this sanctuary could very well disappear before my very eyes.
What promotes human connection to nature?
I believe that our busy lives promote a strong human connection to nature. The city life is something that deprives us from nature. Whether we work a 9 to 5 job, go to school, or spend our days at home we are still (for the most part) in the city. Encompassed by a concrete jungle, we often get lost in the chaos and confusion only thinking about what comes next and how to get there fast. This busy life style drives the human race somewhere quiet, somewhere peaceful. To me this means getting away somewhere green, somewhere where the air isn't ridden with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke. Somewhere where there is no hum of computers, clicking of keyboards or buzzing of incoming messages. Somewhere (preferably) warm, by the water, among the trees, in a field where you can see for miles; anywhere but the city. Escaping to the comforts of nature gives the human race a break, a chance to relax, a chance to slow down and above all chance to take a deep breath and take it all in.
What promotes disconnection from nature?
Something that has severely altered our world is the rise of technology; most of all the use of cell phones. You can't go out anywhere without seeing someone glued to a screen, unaware of their current surroundings and lost in the virtual world. With cell phones you literally carry the world in your hands. You have access to everything in an instant, so why bother with nature? Why bother going out of your way to capture that beautiful shot of a sunset when you can take one off of the internet and use it as your lock screen photo. Why go out and plant trees when you can order a sweater online that also plants ten trees for you? Why go out and help the environment by cleaning up garbage when you can just pay an environmental fee when you purchase food and water in plastic packaging? Why go camping when you can listen to a pre recorded copy of the sounds of nature? Technology makes it so easy for us to forget about REAL nature and put our duties to this once beautiful earth of ours up on the shelf.
Is there a danger to a growing disconnect from nature?
The dangers that follow this ever increasing disconnect from nature are as follows:
1) We are starting to forget about nature and the fact that without this planet and its resources we have NOTHING. We can't live without this planet and all that it provides for us; food, water, and the ability to create shelter.
2) We are ruining the planet with our wants. We are so disconnected that our constant drive to have bigger and better infrastructure or the next best iPhone, bigger cars etc consumes us. We are taking so much more than we need from this planet to live and draining its resources. In turn we are replacing its resources with excessive harmful emissions and leaving the planet to fend for itself. We have become blind to the harm we are inflicting upon the earth.
What do your environmental ethics lie?
Anthropocentric? Biocentric? Ecocentric?
My ethical standpoint on the environment lies in both anthropocentric and ecocentric ideologies.
I believe both of these standpoints hold some merit but only in certain aspects. For example, my views from the anthropocentric standpoint are as follows. Humans profit the most from what the environment has to offer. We have use the biggest variety of its resources that you can't deny that we have made ourselves the largest consumers on the planet. I also believe that it is important to preserve this earth for our future generations so that they too can prosper from what this planet has to offer. However that is as far as my anthropocentric views go, and where my ecocentric ideas come in. Even though humans are the biggest contributor to the destruction of the planet, our individual species and individual selves are just one tiny part of the picture. This is the reality of our existence that humans just don't seem to understand. Everything we do does not just effect other humans, it effects many bio-systems such as plants animals and virtually every species. We are not the only thing we need to be worrying about when everything is interconnected in so many ways. Saving the planet may begin with us but it does not end with us.
Allison Dengate
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