Mullins 1

Braden Mullins
Professor Watkins
9:00 TR Comp II
19 April 2016
Taking Care of Our Home
Like it or not you share your home with about 7.1 billion people with billions more
expected in the future. In order for that many people to coexist in a productive manner they
would at the bare minimum need to take care of their home. Unfortunately we humans cant even
accomplish that. We humans treat our planet worse than a sixteen year old teenager treats their
bedroom. Being a global citizen means that we all have a responsibility to protect the
environment, and no one country can solve the problem because even just one country
irresponsibly misusing the environment is a global issue for all. Our planet is interconnected in
many ways. If overused farmland here in the United States fails to meet global demand then
people around the world die from starvation; the Middle East runs out of fossil fuels, the world
economy would grind to a halt; overfishing in Japan could cause the extinction of fish that would
have dangerous affects down the entire ocean food chain. These are just some of the
environmental problems we face as global citizens. It is crucial that we protect the environment
because we are using materials faster than the environment can create them, our food and water
supply depend on it, and Earths most unique feature, biodiversity is at stake.
All around the world we are using resources at an alarming rate. The environment cant
keep up with our wants and needs as a species. According to Dunlap current populations and
lifestyles are exhausting non-renewable resources like fossil fuels; creating shortages of
renewable resources such as fresh water, fisheries, and forests; and generating accumulating
levels of pollution, particularly hazardous wastes. (Dunlap). That means that if we dont start

Mullins 2
limiting how much we take from the environment then there wont be anything left to take.
Theres only so many trees to be can cut down, oil that can be drilled, and fish that can be
caught. There are a lot of environmental reasons to conserve our planet, but if not for the planet
then we can look at economic reasons to conserve what the earth has to offer. The first is the
lumber industry. If we look around we can see a lot of materials that are made from wood, and if
this industry wants to survive then the rate of trees being cut down has to be less than the rate of
which they are rebuilding these forests. A study using satellite mapping and other data done by
Gayeau shows that since 1973 30.2 percent of the forest in Borneo has been lost to deforestation.
(Gayeau) The most alarming part about this is that there has been no effort to replace this lost
environment. The oil and gas industries are no better, looking past the environmental impact of
the burning emissions it is a widely known fact that oil and gas can only sustain us for so long
before its gone. Even with this knowledge the oil and gas industries show no sign of slowing
down. As we know from the oil crisis in the 1970s or more recent events, the longer we wait to
find a solution the more it ends up hurting consumers bank accounts. Possibly the most
important industry affected by unsustainable usage is the fishing industry. The biggest reason for
this is because people all over the world depend on fish as their primary source of food.
McClanahan finds that the 30 most fish-consumption-dependent nations and found that between
34 and 76% of their protein from animals comes from fish. (McClanahan). Millions of people
are at risk of starvation if the fish population is wiped out. That statistic alone should be enough
for the fishing industries to use more conservative methods, but unfortunately while there is an
effort by some to set limits, the fish populations are still declining at an alarming rate. The
solution is strict world laws that would not allow any country to take more than the environment
can replace. Oil is different because it is not as easily replaced as trees or fish, but that makes it

Mullins 3
even more important to find an alternative. It is essential that we conserve what the environments
all over the world have to offer. We are pushing our planets production rates past their limits and
eventually there will be nothing left for us to take.
We get everything we need from the environment around us oil, lumber, metals, but none
more important than our food and water. The water we drink comes from lakes, rivers, ponds,
underground, and the ocean. The places we dump our waste is also everywhere on that same list.
As a global society we should not be okay with this. One nations waste could end up
contaminating another nations water supply. Cosgrove puts it best There is a water crisis today.
But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing
water so badly that billions of peopleand the environmentsuffer badly (Cosgrove). There
are billions of people on this planet who do not have access to clean water because we are
irresponsible with the way we treat it. Its tragic that people all over the world are dying every
day from a problem we can solve. Its time that we take this problem seriously and find a
solution. Millions of gallons of toxic waste are being dispensed into our lakes, rivers, and oceans
every day. This is how we are treating the environment that is so vital to our survival. Sources of
water toxicity vary greatly, but a couple of contaminants are found more often. All over the
world water is being contaminated by industrial waste from factories of all sorts and from
fertilizer. Industrial pollution is more than preventable because these factories are polluting the
water on purpose, most of them with the consent of their government laws. These laws need to
change, they cant keep regulating the amount of waste dumped into the environment; it needs to
be stopped all together. This is what we can control, the fertilizer on the other hand is used for
farming then is washed into rivers where it contaminates drinking water all over the world. The
chemicals in the water can be harmful to fish and any animal exposed to the water including

Mullins 4
humans. This problem isnt as simple but is just as important. Its not just a human problem
either, animals populations exposed to polluted water are declining. This needs to change
immediately, its not a problem that will occur later on down the road. People and animals are
dying now.
One of our planets most unique features is the biodiversity that can be found everywhere,
but recent changes to the environment caused by humans is taking away the extent to which
biodiversity exist on our planet. Theres three areas of main concern when it comes to this
problem, deforestation, introduction of alien species, and overfishing. Millions of acres of
biodiverse forest are cut down every year to make room for what usually ends up being a one or
two crop farming system. In order to keep up with the growing food demand and to protect the
environment the land already being used needs to be used more wisely. In the countries where
this is happening the farming techniques are outdated producing low yields which is why they
take more land. The solution is a more efficient farming system that produces higher yields on
less land. The plant and animal populations in our forest are declining at alarming rates. Its
important to note that biodiversity is the reason why our planet has been so successful at
sustaining life. Without the vast habitats that used to exist, only certain species will survive.
Another issue facing environments around the world is humans introducing foreign species in
areas where they have never existed. For example certain snakes such as the python were
brought to Florida as pets until these animals got too big and were set free in the Everglades. The
pythons thrived in the swampy environment and reproduced rapidly wreaking havoc on the local
wildlife that has not built up a natural defense to such predators. All over the world similar
scenarios are taking place where humans bring in animals that destroy the local wildlife into

Mullins 5
extinction. To display how serious and real extinction is one article states that We drive into
extinction plant and animal species at a rate of about one species per day.(Environmental
Protection). Averaged out we are losing biodiversity at a rate of one a day. When they go extinct
theyre gone, forever. It took billions of years for our planet to become as diverse as it is now and
we are destroying that with every day that passes. Humans are far from immune to the problem
though. Taking a look back at overfishing we can see that both the amount of sea life and the
biodiversity of it are in decline. Its already established that millions of people depend on the
ocean as theyre main dietary source of protein. The loss of fish species doesnt just mean that
the menu got a little shorter. The loss of one species can have dangerous effects all the way up or
down the food chain that can lead to the loss of other species which has a snowball effect. To put
this into perspective, if we dont start protecting our aquatic environments then millions and
millions of people will die of starvation. Saving the planets biodiversity isnt just something we
should do, its something we have to do. As the endangered species list keeps growing we have
to take a step back and wonder how many species we can kill before the food chain effect gets to
us.
The natural balance of the environment can only handle so much being taken, polluted,
and killed off all together. The environment something we take for granite needs human
intervention now more than ever. Its hard to believe we could possibly take enough of anything
in our planet that it would run out, but we have reached breaking points. Billions of people dont
have clean water which is preventable. Biodiversity is the reason we are here in the first place,
we should hold it with the highest of values. Theres a lot of work to be done, but its not too late
for humans to save the planet from us. As harmful as we are to the environment we have the
capacity to be helpful. With positive human intervention we can not only stop the destruction of

Mullins 6
the environment, but we could help our environment flourish. We have the special ability to be
self-aware and we have the knowledge and tools to create a healthy self-sustaining planet. We
owe it to our planet to protect it, but I want us to take it a step further and help it thrive.

Mullins 7

Works Cited
Coe, M. T., T. R. Marthews, M. H. Costa, D. R. Galbraith, N. L. Greenglass, H. M. A. Imbuzeiro,
N. M. Levine, Y. Malhi, P. R. Moorcroft, M. N. Muza, T. L. Powell, S. R. Saleska, L. A.
Solorzano, and J. Wang. "Deforestation and Climate Feedbacks Threaten the Ecological
Integrity of South-southeastern Amazonia." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences 368.1619 (2013): 20120155. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
Cosgrove, William J., and Frank R. Rijsberman. "World Water Vision." (2000): 1. Web. 10 Apr.
2016.
Dunlap, R. E. and Jorgenson, A. K. 2012. Environmental Problems. The Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Globalization.
Environmental Protection Why It Matters. Environmental Protection Why It Matters. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
Gaveau, David L. A., Sean Sloan, Elis Molidena, Husna Yaen, Doug Sheil, Nicola K. Abram,
Marc Ancrenaz, Robert Nasi, Marcela Quinones, Niels Wielaard, and Erik Meijaard.
"Four Decades of Forest Persistence, Clearance and Logging on Borneo." PLoS ONE 9.7
(2014): n. pag. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
Mcclanahan, Tim, Edward H. Allison, and Joshua E. Cinner. Managing Fisheries for Human
and Food Security. Fish and Fisheries Fish Fish 16.1 (2013): 78-103. Web.

Mullins 8