|
|
Home
> Environment
> Our Changing
Environment
Our Changing
Environment
The world's population is
expected to surpass 6 billion by 1998. The .support of so many people
places a great strain on the Earth's resources and resilience.
Environmental science attempts to identity and remedy the many problems
that can arise when the environment is so severely stressed. These
problems can be as small as the fate of a wildflower, as threatening as
the explosion of a. nuclear power plant as final as the
extinction of many of the Earth's species of animals and plants. All of
these problems and many more face as the 20th century draw to
a close.
|
It is the United
States at night, photographed by satellite in the spring of 1990.
All the little specks of light you see, blinking like tiny stars,
are cities. The great metropolitan areas are ablaze with light. The
northeastern seacoast stands out like a glowing beacon, a great
strip of humanity. At its hub, the corner where the seacoast turns
from north-south to east-west is New York City. The-light from
individual buildings cannot be seen— the scale is far too small for
that—and from the .satellite it is nor obvious does that even at
night New York City teem with people. |
|
At the moment of
the snapping of this picture, millions of people at that glowing corner
were talking, hundreds of thousands of cars struggled through traffic
hearts were broken, babies born, and promises made. Were our lens but
sharp enough, we would see under this one blur of light, frozen in time,
nil of this and more— 15,700,000 people busy at life. All over the
country the story is repeated, each light reflecting the same picture on
a different scale, all the stories making up a panorama of modern
industrial society.
Our
futures, und those of all other people on Earth, are linked to each of
the unseen 2 SO million people in this photograph. Each of us is in the
picture. The way we lead our live;, will have a significant impact
upon the environment we share, and our consumption of resources will
affect life in many other countries. Indeed, a factor equal to, if not
more important than, population size is a population's level of
consumption. Inhabitants of the United States and other developed
countries consume many more resources per person than do citizens of
developing countries such as Nigeria, India, and Peru. Our high rate of
resource consumption affects the environment as much as, or more than,
the explosion in population that is occurring in parts of the world.
Thus, as human numbers consumption increase worldwide, so does
humanity’s on Earth, out common environment new challenges to us all.
More
On Our Changing
Environment
●
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
● OUR IMPACT
ON THE ENVIRONMENT
● THE GOALS
OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
|
