Eco Narrative

To be honest, I never really have put much thought into the environment and how every little thing we do affects it in some way. Coming in to college and taking my environmental biology class and now watching the documentary in this class has opened my eyes to some realities about the world we live in today, such as, half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth's land surface are gone. Only one-fifth of the Earth's original forests remain pristine and undisturbed. Furthermore 60% of the world's coral reefs that contain up to one-fourth of all marine species could be lost in the next 20-40 years. Those are things that I would have never imagined, especially growing up in the area I was raised in it was pretty much all pasture and clean springs. But that’s the reality that no one seems to want to really hear. If we took some of these statistics seriously and did just a few small things to help our environment that we supposedly love it would make a much bigger difference than everyone probably thinks. As I just said, I grew up in a very small town that is just now starting to build more supermarkets and developments. Citrus County is known for its very open, non-crowded yet welcoming atmosphere. Also for manatees, people will travel from all over just to come swim with those sea cows. I personally grew up on a 10-acre property and was always outside either fishing, hunting, tubing, or sitting by a bonfire. I guess that’s why I’ve never really paid much attention to global warming or pollution. My boyfriend’s grandmother lives on the water so every weekend we were out on the boat either red fishing or over the summer we would be scalloping. Back home we also have a gorgeous spring called Three Sisters spring and it’s the some of the clearest and coldest water I have ever seen. It was probably about 40 feet deep and you didn’t even need a mask to see the bottom, if you could stand swimming in it for more than five minutes without getting hypothermia. The only time that I really ever thought about the environments downhill path is when I went to Ocala, which was about 30 minutes away, and you would see a lot of trash on the side of the road which a lot of the time was from homeless people. At almost every intersection in Ocala there would be a homeless person with their little pile of trash by the road. It really would frustrate me that they are willing to ask for money but they can’t be courteous enough to throw away their trash. Sometimes I would also think about when I would be out on the boat and see beer bottles floating or when I would be fishing and come up on nets and line that got stuck so they just cut it and left it. That line, net, beer bottle, plastic bag, and so many other things are the reason our coral reefs are depleting like they are and its also killing a lot of our wildlife. As I previously stated, before I left for college it was never much of a concern of mine considering where I was raised because everything is still kept pretty clean. One of the main things that really grabbed my attention was the documentary I watched in class with Al Gore called An Inconvenient Truth. I never knew that he cared about anything except trying a million different ways to become president, so it was really interesting to see him focus on something else. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to the environment or what our world is on the verge of, but in my opinion he did a really good job in explaining these pretty complex issues to where the norm would be able to understand and not be just overwhelmed with information. I am a very visual learner, so for him to have a lot of videos and diagrams to further explain his point was the main strategy that kept my attention throughout the presentation. The fact that he made it personal was another high point for me. He integrated his childhood and how he was raised on a farm and told personal stories about his family and work and tied it into his influence and concern with the environments condition today. There honestly isn’t much I would change about this documentary. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it kept my attention throughout the whole video. It also opened my eyes to what could happen if we as a nation don’t step up and take action on what we’ve been talking about during all of these years. Two things that I have thought of that are actually pretty small but I think would make a huge difference would be littering and smoking. I believe littering will always be an issue, but if we put more of an emphasis on it and cut a quarter of the people that throw their trash out in the woods or leave their couch on the side of the road, it would make a big difference in the quality of our environment. Littering doesn’t only deteriorate the environment, but is also is a huge fire hazard. What could be a routine burning could turn into a much bigger fire because of a pile of trash that was dumped in the woods. Plastic debris fragments can accumulate and transport persistent organic pollutants (POP) and carry them into the marine food web. Some POPs are highly toxic and there is now a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from these chemicals (Healthy Waterways).
Another thing that I think would help out our environment is to try and stop smoking, or at least cut down on it. Not only does smoking ruin ones health but it also plays a big role in the environment. There are approximately 1.2 billion smokers in the world today and to simply make 300 cigarettes is equal to one tree wasted. Another major impact on the environment is due the production of the cigarettes. The land used for the cultivation of tobacco plants could be better used for producing food or just kept as forest. Moreover tobacco plants are highly susceptible to pests and disease so to maintain their proper growth and health various chemicals and pesticides are being sprayed. The production and packaging of cigarettes require a lot of trees. Many people don’t use ashtrays so when they are done with one cigarette they simply toss the cigarette butt out the window, which a lot of the times makes its way into streams lakes and oceans and fish will mistake the butts for food and what doesn’t get eaten and ends up on the bottom of stream or lake will take up to 30 years to decompose. The only way to stop this would be for people to stop smoking, which is another thing that is much easier said than done. People like to smoke and once they start its extremely hard to stop. We need to get people to realize that when you throw your McDonalds cup or cigarette butt out the window it is a big deal, and it does make a difference when you dispose of things properly. Furthermore smoking doesn’t just affect your health. All the commercials today only show the health affects smoking can cause in the long run but never anything on how many trees a day are wasted to make cigarettes or the chemicals that are being sprayed on the tobacco plants in order to produce their product. I honestly think if people would look at the bigger picture and take a minute to think or maybe even watch An Inconvenient Truth not necessarily all of it, and some people would be more conscientious about littering and smoking. I love to go out on the boat and be able to have open and undeveloped land where I live and it would also be devastating for our ocean to deteriorate along with the little open land we have left. So I am going to start being more aware of my surroundings and actions on how I can prevent what I love from going to waste.