Social Science Class Review

This class changed the way I look at the world. When I was signing up for classes a semester ago I didn't think I had just signed up for the class that makes you want to sit in a corner and cry. ENST 2030 made me look at the human race through disgusted eyes and made me wish that there was some sort of reset button I could go press. Unfortunately there is no reset button and all we can hope for is that humans are gifted enough to be able to coexist with this fragile nature long enough to where we are able to achieve balance with not only one another but also with nature.

As a class we were asked what is nature, and are we as humans a part of it. Not so long ago I would have said, "Nature is everything that is natural and can coexist with something else and of course, humans are a part of nature." But of course, I'd be wrong. My definition of nature hasn't changed; it is a picture of harmony, but my answer for the question of whether or not humans are a part of nature has. Humans have alienated itself from mother earth; all humans do is leech energy from it and wars over its land. We stopped being a part of nature when we started abusing it with the newfound power of the industrial revolution. If humans wanted to get back into nature, and have a future they would have to abandon all of their vain ambitions and stop living their destructive lives. I don't see many humans who are willing to put down their lavish lifestyle for a life with far less possessions.

The world that we live in is a wonderful place and has provided us with the means to live a great life. Humans are taking advantage of our gracious planet by raping the lands for our food and drilling deep to get oil to fuel our cars. We are destroying the earth because we can't stop our progress. These selfish things we do, such as drilling for oil and contaminating thousands of miles of ocean because of our sloppy techniques, destroying forests for wood and places to raise cattle for a couple years, and building roads and other impermeable blacktop for transportation, we do all in the name of humanity and progress; if we keep on there will be no more resources to improve with.

There are countless endangered animals that are in danger because of our negligence. Some of the species that are now gone off of the face of the earth are gone because of us. They are gone because we clear-cut too much of their forest or because we polluted their waters with run off from factories making I heart trees t-shirts. This is truly unfortunate, but I don't see it changing any time soon. Humans are tragically selfish, and make the mistake of focusing more on themselves in the now and not thinking of their great grand children.

All animals are selfish, they all want the best for themselves, and humans are no different. Humanity survived and flourished the way it did because it took care of itself and gave the rest of the species the finger. This was fine as long as we were small, but now that we are over seven million strong and everyone wants as big of a piece of the pie as they can get we are starting to see the beginnings of some very big problems. Humans are it's own worst enemy; they don't know how to stop. If they don't stop consuming all of the resources and polluting everything that can possibly be polluted, then we are up the creek with no possibly making a paddle because they chopped down all the wood.

There is still a little bit of hope out there for humanity. As stated in New World New Mind all the changes and advancements in societies have not come from biological evolution but social. Once we learn something that knowledge sticks with us and transfers over from generation to generation. All humans have to do is learn how to stop; once we stop all the detrimental things we are not only doing to the planet but also to ourselves we can build off of that and have a long term future. It looks like the world is at least slowing down, which gives me hope for the future. All we have to do is let the green movement catch on and be a big part of our culture and we are set.

Before we have any chance of having a future we must see what we are doing wrong to our planet and recognize viable ways to fix it. The state of the world is in sad shape because of our neglect, and that is inexcusable in itself but what's even worse is that we continue to do so even after we have been given all the facts and shown the results. We must see what we are doing to the atmosphere and realize that if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise then the world will be knocked out of its natural balance. We must decrease carbon emissions as much as we can so the atmosphere can start to rebuild itself. NASA reports, since 1880 the land temperature has raised 0.63 degrees c. this is because of greenhouse gases we are releasing such as CO2. The CO2 emissions have hit an all time high and the CO2 in the atmosphere is climbing at a rate that continues steadily in the direction of disaster. New World New Mind says that 7.9 billion tons of CO2 was released in our atmosphere in 2008. This kind of pollution will make the temperature rise 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

If the temperature did rise like that then there would be no more ice caps, they would become part of the oceans and they would rise by leaps and bounds. "If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely then the seas would rise twenty-three feet" that would only be a chunk of the ice that would melt. Our way of living would be drastically changed forever, and maybe our chances of living would be thrown under the bus. The polar bear's ecosystem is a perfect example of how the heat is killing once thriving ecosystems. If all the ice were to melt then it would kill our ecosystem, just like the heat destroyed the polar bears; there would be far less space humans could use, and we would all be forced into war over land. The people that would be displaced by the water would come inland and be forced to fight with the people that were there before them. The saying "come hell or high water" would never be said again because with high water comes hell.

The reason the world is in such dire straights is because we discovered how to use this nasty stuff called oil. Once humans began using the energy that is stored in oil for their own uses the population exploded in a great clip. The people thought that it was the best stuff ever and burned coal and oil like there was no end to the stuff. They ended up misusing the energy and letting the bad side rear its ugly head in our skies, streams, and soils. The humans took no notice of this and kept on exploiting the earth for its riches. Soon enough we had the technology to do almost anything: from going to the moon, to traveling around the earth