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North America Human Environment

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Jackson asks a thought provoking question in his Post Carbon Reader Series about human impacts upon the environment of North America. From 1492 to 1765, everyday life in agrarian American remained relatively consistent with Pieter Breugel’s The Harvester (1565) painting. (Jackson) It was not to remain still life forever. The pace of advancement quicked after the industrial revolution, Louisiana purchase, homesteader prairie settlement, agricultural mechanization, and Green Revolution which has now left us with a system of homogenized crops grown in isolation of ecosystems and kept alive by chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. It isn’t just bad for the crops -- it’s damaging our ecosystem on a broad scale. Jackson states that “the …show more content…

According to the European Union’s Joint Research Center, soil contains nearly one third of all living organisms, but only about one percent have been identified. Another study in 2003 featured in the journal Ecosystems estimated that 5% of the United State’s soil biodiversity was “in danger of substantial loss, or complete extinction, due to agriculture and urbanization.” (Robbins) The damage comes from multiple sources. Paving or building over soil effectively blocks out the air, water, and light needed to have a functioning soil biome meaning that roads, cities, sidewalks, houses, and businesses have destroyed the soil beneath it. Agricultural practices remove organic material, decreasing food, and then allows fallowed land to become dry and exposed to the elements. Household, industrial, and agricultural toxins can also sterilize soil if not disposed of …show more content…

It is well known that the best option on paper would be to suddenly reduce the input of additional greenhouse gases into the environment, the recylce everything, and to ensure that all future development comes about in a sustainable way. According to a new climate-modeling study, stabilizing the climate will mean having to go to zero emissions almost immediately. (Mooney) However, as scientists, Teller and Woods “doubt people would ever give up enough of their costly energy-consumption habits to prevent climate-associated risks,” and see “global greenhouse gas treaties like Kyoto as they had been of arms-control agreements during the ’80s.” (Mooney) Effectively, conservation only options are now being given less credibility in addressing the entire crisis. What’s the new plan “Direct, aggressive intervention, either in the upper atmosphere or low Earth orbit, essentially to turn down the volume knob on solar radiation” states

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