Environmental Injustice Essay Example

is a turning point where the environment can no longer sustain the amounts of people which it contains.

A crisis of apathy and inaction is one where the human race cannot be motivated to solve the problems with the environment that they themselves have created. The claim that we have an environmental crisis because we have a people crisis is valid because our environmental problems have largely resulted from population growth, which has lead to apathy and inaction with regard to the wasteful consumption of resources. We drive our cars everywhere consuming more oil than many countries put together. Televisions, stereos, air conditioning and many more devices require endless amounts of electricity.

Most people don't care that much of this electricity comes from burning coal. As long as every thing works, we have grown accustomed to the skies being a little dirty. No big deal it's not hurting anyone, right? We don't see any major changes to our lives. All the coal burning and autos are sending too much carbon monoxide in the air. Drilling for oil and mining for valuable metals, they have serious effects on us and our environment. But we don't see any major problems around us. It's like everyone is wearing blinders we are not fully affected by problems such as Global warming so just go on and pretend it will get better on its own.

If you talk to TulsiKhara she knows and lives the effects of Global warming. Tulsi has lived for seventy years on the worlds largest Delta, at the meeting of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers at the Bay of Bengal. Tulsi had to

move recently because the river has swallowed up the island and farmland that her family cultivated for generations. Even the new island in which she moved will soon fall to the sea as well. "I couldn't believe my eyes-the land that I had tilled for years, that fed me and my family for generations, has vanished. It is very distressing. (WWF, 2006).

Tusli also contends that the storms have gotten much more intense, their belongings and cattle swept away by cyclones. Right now we are in the infancy of technological development with crude energy sources and chemical processes that have the potential to destroy the environment either as by products of our civilization or with their deliberate destructive use in another world war. Energy systems could be created that would cause virtually no pollution. Furthermore world wide economic development can proceed without harming the environment.

Decentralized systems such as solar panels can bring electricity and non-polluting development to many corners of the world. Yet the destructive technology that we continue to use will have consequences for many years to come. In fact, we will feel the effects long after we have stopped using this technology and switched to a more environmentally friendly one. Global warming will affect just about everyone, even though it is primarily a small number of nations that are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. The same holds true for radiation pollution, as we saw in the Chernobyl disaster.

Radiation crossed national borders and ended up all across the world. Even over-population will affect us all, because a severe strain on the ecosystem in one part of the globe will

create stress on other parts. This crisis is very real. If the global temperature increases and the sea level rises, there will be massive changes in the weather which will cause migrations across the world as well as wide spread flooding. In this kind of environment, new and rapidly spreading diseases could wipe out large numbers of people and the food supply could be threatened.

These kinds of disruptions could also lead to wars. We need it for drinking, for cooking, for washing, for food, for industry, for energy, for transport, for rituals, for fun, for life. And it is not only we humans who need it; all life is dependent on water to survive. But we stand today on the brink of a global water crisis. The two major legacies of the 20th Century - the population and technological explosions - have taken their toll on our water supply. More people lack drinking water today than they did two decades ago.

More and more freshwater sources are being used-up and contaminated. Modern technologies have allowed us to harness much of the world's water for energy, industry and irrigation - but often at a terrible social and environmental price - and many traditional water conservation practices have been discarded along the way. Most of the solutions to the crisis must be developed and implemented locally, and always with the view that water is not to be taken for granted, or unjustly appropriated by particular groups for particular needs.