NIEHS Environmental Coloring

In order to preserve our resources, environmentalists use the concept of sustainable development-sustainable development is a development that satisfies our current needs without compromising the future availability of natural resources, or our future quality of life. Our consumption rates have risen significantly higher; according to the World Watch Institute, and their article The State of Consumption Today, the rate has gone up thirty-five percent, and we are now ecologically at risk. Nevertheless, who can we blame but

Americans, as a whole, do not care about the environment anymore. When we watch the news or simply talk about our day, there are always more pressing topics that come up. However, as a nation, the threat of a failing environment seems to be forgotten because the effects are not as obvious as other threats. Bill McKibben’s “Waste Not, Want Not” discusses how much time, money, resources, and people America has actually wasted and how little effort has been made to try to change. McKibben causes readers to think it is too late to save the environment from our wastefulness because we put our efforts into systems that do not help the environment, spend more money and resources than necessary, and refuse to acknowledge how much were wasting.

“In Waste Not, Want Not” author Bill McKibben, makes several arguments about how wasteful Americans are. Throughout the essay McKibben provides facts that show the degree of how much waste is built up daily. The author emphasizes waste throughout the essay by giving the reader an idea of much plastic, aluminum, paper, lithium, and food are wasted daily. If humans do not come together to help reduce the amount of waste, eventually planet earth will not be able to provide a stable environment to sustain life. Life as we know it is slowly coming closer and closer to the end, and without a joint effort to protect the environment and limit waste the end of life will come sooner than expected.

Throughout world history, people have come up with brilliant new ideas to make life easier, and as time goes on, research, making food, and getting news, has all become instantaneous. It now only takes the push of a button to cook a thanksgiving meal or the click of a remote to find out what’s happening across the world. These things are often taken for granted, and rarely does someone stop and say: “I wonder what turning on this extra lamp does to the environment?” This statement sounds insignificant when there are people starving in other countries and people are training for the army. Yet, being concerned about the environment is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the environment should be one of the biggest concerns among people, as

The United States has always been known as the home of the brave and land of the free. We tend to think our country is dominant, advanced, and stable; we also like to overshadow our problems with our glorious recognition as almost the entire world has seen our patriotism in some sense. “Every year one American produces over 3,285 pounds of hazardous waste”; the total population in the United States is around 300,000,000. In other words, if we calculate the number of Americans living in the United States and the number of pounds each American produces, the total of hazardous waste is about 925,500,000,000. That is 115 times more waste than the entire population on Earth; China and India’s population exceeds 1,000,000,000. Just imagine how much waste is being produced on a global scale. This hazardous waste is not only destroying species but also their habitats, which are more important because they provide intrinsic value to our community as a whole. Together, we must preserve and conserve Earth’s natural ecological system and its citizens

Regardless of what one thinks about American consumerism or our high levels of production, it is a fact that we live in a throw-away society. What that means is that we produce a lot, throw away a lot, and most things are planned to become obsolete within a few years. Recently, there has been an unprecedented effort to correct these negatives habits of our society, seeing as they can’t last forever. This effort, aptly called sustainability, is one of the most grandiose undertakings in American society today. Universities, corporations, households, and everything in-between, are all striving towards sustainability, but what actually is it? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (EPA). With such a broad definition, there are plenty of critics and skeptics that say that such a proposition is too idealistic and therefore impossible. In fact, I agree with that faction and acknowledge that with such a loose definition, it will never be truly possible to be sustainable. However, my rebuttal, as it seems natural to say, is that nearly everything we do or strive for in America is, in a way, too idealistic. From that, I assert that we need to make a deliberate effort, as both consumers and producers, to work towards sustainability to move away from our throw-away tendencies.

A Conservationist Manifesto In A Conservationist Manifesto, Scott Russell Sanders argues that consumerism is a destructive force in the nation. He offers a solution: “As an antidote to this culture of consumption, extravagance, and waste that dominates America today, we need to imagine a culture of conservation.” Sanders encourages readers to think of a new way to exist in the natural world. Sanders enlightened my perspective on the mass amount of consumption that we suffer in America.

Nations are judged and measured by their production and selling of goods and services. Not only has increased consumerism resulted in ecological imbalance, it is also depleting earth’s natural resources, which in turn is creating an environmental crisis. One of the biggest products being consumed is food. Rapidly growing world’s population requires increased food production. Author Anna Lappe does an excellent job expounding on the impact that food production and distribution has on the environment. Lappe (2015) argues that modern practices of food production directly contribute to air pollution and increases carbon dioxide emissions (par. 11). Crop production uses an absurd amount of land, artificial fertilizer, and harmful pesticides that seriously pollutes the environment and threatens young children and wildlife species. Author Sandra Steingraber (2015) also argues that increased consumerism has led to a high usage of harmful chemicals to produce products for consumers (par.

People need to understand that the environment is everybody’s responsibility. We need to take accountability for providing a green future for future generations. We must act before its too late. We must sacrifice, compromise, and be willing to

Bill Nye stated, “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” Humans are not only causing the climate change that Nye mentioned, but are also destroying the environment by wasting resources. The world has a serious problem that, if not dealt with right away, will lead to environmental catastrophe. However some people may ignore this warning from Nye and use the argument that the United States doesn’t need to worry about the environment because more pressing matters exist. In today’s world everyone uses energy and resources to meet their daily needs, but some of it is wasted unintentionally. The American government and its citizens have the responsibility to reduce this waste.

While in Brave New World the idea of nature is destroyed to accommodate consumerism, in America nature itself is physically being destroyed as developers turn forests and fields into condos and parking lots. As Americans consume an excess amount of materials, a need for the production of these products is required. Thus, this leads to the detriments of overproduction, which according to Greentumble leads to “pollutant emissions”, “deforestation”, and “climate change.” Another negative effect of consumerism on the environment is the whooping 12 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year, forming gigantic waste patches. Lastly, the destruction of the environment is obviously a factor that can destroy society because we get our resources primarily from the environment.

The United States is economy is based on a consumption driven model. Corporate law has more to do with lining shareholder pockets than environmental protection. Externalities have become a byproduct of doing business in the United States. Perhaps this is why economics has become an environmental issue as well as a financial one. The release of greenhouse gasses into the environment is increasing. The environmental impact of electronic goods is negatively affecting our ecosystem. From water, to farming, to the amount of trash we dispose of our consumption continues to impact our environment in negative ways; in the not so distant future the damage could become irreversible. Recycling helps a great deal, but, the only reasonable path back to a sustainable way of life must, by necessity, include less consumption.

The United States is an ecologically rich and diverse nation. Ever since the United States became a country so many years ago, they have remained one of the places that everyone from all over the world strives to make a living in. But what if in the future the United States couldn't offer people the basic needs of life such as water, food, land, and clean air? Well that harsh reality isn't too far away after all. Due to the increase in land and water usage in the United States it has become a cesspool of urbanization and disease. Because of this the United States is quickly running out of natural resources and shows no sign of stopping. “The US Environmental Protection Agency Resource Conservation website begins: Natural resources and

As a country, Americans love to shop. Whether in malls, grocery stores, on the Internet, or elsewhere, the culture of buying is deeply ingrained in American culture. Fueled largely by advertising and the current credit system, America’s consumer culture is depleting our planet’s finite natural resources and polluting our environment. Consumerism has instilled in Americans an artificial, ongoing, and insatiable desire for mass-produced and marketed products, and the money with which to buy them, with little regard to their actual usefulness or necessity. This constant desire to acquire more possessions is poisoning the planet, as it can never be sated and thus results in the never-ending exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources, and

All around the world, people are consuming more resources, than what can be replenished in the same amount of time. The United States has one of the largest ecological footprints around the world; we are depleting resources very