Since the value of currency appreciated, more value has to be paid by other nations to purchase US products. However, exports would…
“More and better,” states Bill Mckibben ' in his national best selling book Deep Economy ' “are two birds roosting on the same branch.” Within traditional economic values these two birds could be taken out with one stone synonymously in every attempt. However, in our age of endless economic growth, expanded populations, and industrial centralization, “the greater wealth no longer make us happier.” (Mckibben, 2) Not only this, but “more” ' more money, more consumerism, more fuel ' succeeds in adding momentum to the course of environmental destruction that we, as North Americans, are responsible for putting in motion. This is the underlying metaphor…
David Suzuki a Canadian geneticist, author, and television producer, who has continuously advertised his environmental utopian views for years. After his family had suffered greatly from world War two he came to appreciate nature and man’s dependence on it. Conservation, according to him, is a necessity for humankind’s own survival. Through his radio and television programs, he has tried to educate everyone who isn't well versed in the topic. The text we have chosen is a twenty minute speech by David Suzuki that was presented at the 2003 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Protecting and Restoring Nature Collection. In which he presents the idea that the economy is just a subset of ecology. Drawing on native wisdom and…
In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, she makes a compelling argument for the planet’s sustainability. Through several chapters, she illustrates how, despite how the Earth provides for all of our needs, we do not repay the favour and instead destroy the life it has left. We are not realizing the value of preserving the environment; instead, we are adapting to the thought that the extended use of fossil fuels is typical, climate change is irreversible, environmental pollution is an unfixable problem, endangered species are beyond salvation, and society has become increasingly disconnected to the planet as it once was. Kimmerer articulates this throughout multiple chapters.…
Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan gives the reader a basic understanding of the different aspects and workings of economics. Economics deals with incentives, which are reasons people may want to do something whether the end result be positive or negative. Another of the author’s points is that some governments are sometimes inefficient systems that pass regulations which limit consumers, however they are necessary. Lastly Wheelan states that everything one does, costs in some way.…
Bill McKibben’s book, “Deep Economy”, begins by examining the idea that ‘More is Better’. This idea has been deeply ingrained into American culture for the past hundred years. Indeed, the practice of increasing efficiency by increasing scale was the key to the wealth of many of the pioneers of American business, such as Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie. In fact, due to the overall prosperity of American society, we enjoy a standard of life that is much higher than the majority of most of the world’s citizens. However, in the last few decades, it has become increasingly clear that in this push for increasing growth, most of the wealth being accumulated…
"Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science" by Charles Wheelan is a book that takes a subject like economics and puts it in layman’s terms so that almost any reader can comprehend what makes an economy, and what it takes for an economy flourish or fail. Naked Economics offers insight into morals, ethics, and regulations associated with economic decisions.…
Ketcham’s article brings light upon the harsh truth that the world is incapable of handling itself along with the growth of human consumption. Humans are proud of their innovations in earth, but it is costing the planet. The authors of Limits affirms this when they argued that “‘The application of technological solutions alone has prolonged the period of population and industrial growth, but it has not removed the ultimate limits to that growth’" [1]. I agree with this quote. For example, in a recent article I read, scientists have figured out how to essentially “hack” a better environment— a process called solar geoengineering. Although it proved to be beneficial to the environment, the scientist asserted that there will be less incentive…
Quite often, environmental issues are discussed in terms of economic, political and/or social implications. Ethical issues, fundamental to the topic, are usually ignored. Failure to consider these issues is often understandable when the nature of pragmatic politics and economics is understood. Ethical positions are most often phrased as questions asking how we, as humans, relate to other humans individually, to other humans as groups, to other humans still to be born, to other forms of life and/or to entire sets ranging from ecosystems to the entire planet. Questions as to humans’ relations with nature are often raised as well as the relationship between technology and progress – for example, are gains from technological innovations mainly accrued by the wealthy and often at the expense of poor or dispossessed peoples? To what extent do technological innovations generate serious social and ecological problems? Is progress in meeting human needs always at the expense of nature? Is the biotechnology revolution in agriculture in the best interest of both humanity and nature? Questions such as these will be dealt with as our course proceeds during the semester.…
In chapter four of Brian G. Henning’s book, “Riders in the Storm,” he talks about sustainability and the different views on sustainability over the years. Sustainability, is not something that is only related to the environment it can also be related to economics and even politically. Sustainability in terms of the environment today is a term we use to describe how much of something we can use while still leaving enough for it to naturally regenerate back to the level it was a before. The task of sustaining the environment is not easy and is a challenge that humans need to take on to help future generations. Humans will need to think about what kind of character they have and their relationships not only to future generations but also other living organisms.…
Rachel Carson’s Man and the Stream of time possesses enlightening perspectives of nature that have been marinating in her mind for ten years. Her writing reflects upon the effects that man has on nature and the role he plays in the ever changing environment. Her sole observation is that it is man’s nature to want to conquer the world, but nature is not one to be conquered. The writer affirms that nature is an entity that must be dignified, Like English poet Francis Thompson said, “Thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.” Most environmentalist would agree that nature is not stationary, we cut the trees now today, its not just the trees that disappear ten years from now. As humanity advances, we create a multitude of technologies and industries, and with these discoveries comes massive amounts of waste and destruction. Rachel Carson’s man point is, man is ignorantly trying tame the beast, but years from now it is not the first man who will reap the travesty of self destruction.…
The lecture I attended for the Learn outside of the classroom assignment was After Learning: Education on a Hot Planet by Dr. Bennett Ramsey. He discussed ways in where our culture should provide students with the knowledge, skills and perspective necessary to meet today’s challenges. He stated that the world of education is rooted in economic root of fantasy growth for prosperity, but we are not growing because we are hitting limits. Growth economically can be best productive when in a world worth living in. As he was talking, he kept saying that how everything is based off of economics and that we should think of moral integrity. We only think of ourselves, and we have to realize as humans, we are the most intelligent species, so we have to think of the animals, and how our actions affect the ecosystem. He gave an example of how we are focused on ourselves that we are affecting others countries. In the Foxconn plant which is located in China had at least fourteen workers committed suicide due to the harsh work conditions, so there were suicide nets placed outside of the windows, and the workers were forced sign pledges not to commit suicide. He also stated that Earth is pushed beyond its limits; we are using 1.5 million of the planet’s resourced causing us to be in an environmental crisis. We are in an anthropogenic age meaning the activities we do in our daily lives affects the ecosystem, which will eventually hurts us in the…
We rely on so many resources to help us advance as we continue into the future, but we are relying on them too much and it’s threatening out world. Try to imagine yourself and your life without resources, no oil, plastic, wood, etc., what could you survive without? Reading the articles, “The Curse of Water Bottles” and “Fracking Threatens Everyone” we see just which resources aren’t completely necessary. Certain resources had a period where they were the rise of mankind, but to this day they are the cause of the falling of mankind.…
The fundamental ecological flaws of the capitalist system have been emphasized primarily by critical political-economic thinkers coming out of or deeply influenced by the Marxist tradition. In the United States environmental sociology has been deeply affected by two critical concepts arising out of Marx, the treadmill of production, and the metabolic rift. The treadmill of production concept is the notion that capitalism is geared above all to exponential growth, as suggested by Marx’s M-C-M’ shorthand. The level of economic activity in each period starts with the end point of the previous period, leading to a doubling of economic output. The driving force of this expansion is capital accumulation and the search for ever expanding profits. Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift helps us understand capitalism’s intensive, not merely extensive, destruction of the environment. The metabolic rift was developed as capitalism systematically violated the basic conditions of sustainability on an increasingly large scale, through soil intensification and global transportation of nutrients, food, and fiber (Clark, B., & York, R.…
In a modern world human beings are essentially running out of resources. It is often heard that evidence of environmental damage being created by humanity is inconclusive. It is not a subject often discussed within modern media and until recently, a majority of the population remained unaware to the growing issues currently challenging the Earth. This ecological crisis could persuasively be blamed upon the rapidly advancing world of technology, however anthropogenic studies, (MacKenzie, D. 1999), along side growing environmental evidence show mankind has not evolved at the same speed of these new found technologies, hence is technology to blame for our ecological crisis or is mankind? Do these machines now control individual lives and are human beings becoming slave to the very technologies they have created? This thesis will explore these questions within developing nations and argue that it is not technology at fault for the Earth's increasing temperature's and environmental damage, rather western societies ideology that mankind is unable to survive without it, (technology).…