Bill Mckibben's Podcast

In this podcast, the author talks about how modern humans as a whole have permanently altered the universe. The universe is no longer the same and resources such as fossil fuels are running scarce. The world we used to live in was more suffiencent then this. That is why he chose to spell Earth "Eaarth", because it has fully changed. The main argument made by this author is that relentless growth has fundamentally changed the environment. There is no longer any capacity left to hold or money left to spend. The author suggests alternative methods to get by such as: a food system that doesn't depend on an intense amount of fossil fuels, having durability as a virtue instead of growth, and changing the price of energy to reflects the damage on society. A good point was made during this podcast that local agriculture around the country is flourishing so that should be taken advantage of. The bioregional quiz was a good website to be familiar with because the quiz put my lifestyle in perspective for me.

Environmental Issue

Out of the many problems that our world faces today, I would say the depletion of resources is most important one. What is everyone going to do when day to day resources such as food, gas, water is gone? No one actually understands the severity of this problem. Nor does anyone think it will actually happen in their lifetime. Well their wrong. The United States is a perfect example for this problem because we are very greedy when it comes to resources. We, as a country, use the most resources out of any country out there.
In the article I read  Obama calls to end subsidies on gas and oil prices because he now too realizes what it is doing to our country. We consume 20% of the worlds oil and are going through it way to fast. At this rate there wont be anything left for not only us when we are adults, but people that have yet to be born. I, myself am to blame for this because everyone does it without realizing the harmful  effects that it puts on our environment. I would say that we need to raise more awareness on this subject and  put a limit on important things that we will need in the future to survive.
There is no certain place that this issue harms specifically the most except maybe industrial cities such as New York but in the end everyone is going to be in trouble because the resources will run out everywhere, not just in New York. One of the main ways to lower this from happening is that everyone condenses the amounts of things that they use and are more aware of how this is effecting the environment and themselves in the long run. Always remember the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Without doing this our world will surely decease.

This is a link to the article I researched involving the shortages of our resources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/politics/obama-calls-for-an-end-to-subsidies-for-oil-and-gas-companies.html?ref=reservesnaturalresources

Island Civilization

In the essay, “Island Civilization” Roddrick Frazier Nash analyzes how the environment was evolved other the past millenniums. In some ways I agree with Nash because he points out that the reason our wilderness in decreasing is because of the treatment of humans and that is completely true. Over the past 100 years the wilderness isn’t the main concern in the world today. It has grown to be the production of businesses and the growth of our world today as a whole. In the past, the world was full of wildlife now when you look into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water it is completely deserted.

            Humans have taken the technology available today and have left the wilderness out in the cold. We as people used to live and thrive off the wildlife for food and clothing. Now in the third millennium it is like humans have not learned to share the environment with everyone, most importantly the animals that for the time being inhabit it and have since the beginning of time. We have gotten greedy about how we think about other inhabits such as animals that walk this earth. What will happen in the fourth millennium?

            According to this article we are on a downward spiral to extinction of many animals and inhabit that have lived and roamed here since the beginning of time. Nash has several ways to help this problem but the one that I didn’t agree with was lowering the population. Of course the population is huge and growing by the second but how are you supposed to just eliminate a good amount of people live on this earth? There has got to be a better way to change the course of this problem. If the people wanted to live in the fourth millennium and just have technical lifestyle then that is what is bound to happen in the future.

            In my opinion I agree with Nash, although it is easier said than done. You can’t just change all that has developed in a blink of an eye. It’s not that simple. On the other hand, there needs to be a drastic change in the way we share our environment. Most people don't realize how much a problem this is in our world but without all these resources left  on earth what will we do? Its just something to think about....