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June 05, 2012
| What is the environment really? |
| Posted by Enviroadmin |
| Saturday, 13 August 2011 14:04 |
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A few days ago my parents asked me the question of what area of the environment my interest is, and after I elaborated for close to half an hour about what the environment is all about they stopped me and repeated the question. I had to choose where my focus was. I felt that was unfair in a technical sense, it can be compared of asking the same question, say to a fish and to tell them they should be more specific in what attributes of water they wanted to be part of. Why can’t I for the life of me say everything? Do we as species actually realise how interrelated we are with the environment? I believe the definition of what it involves is crucial to our understanding here. In environmental economics you learn about processes, how the input and subsequently its usage and quantity of this input determines the output in the form of effluent, waste, gasses and so on, we due to institutional regiments are to specialize in what area we choose to go into. This is known as specialization. Yet how can we make concise decisions in our fields of expertise when the one process is just as important as the next one? This would, of course, involve compiling a team who has the insight to know what processes is involved. This in theory would require us to accumulate a team with specialists ranging from Astronomists right down too Zoologists. This should be a prerequisite for anything as mundane as counting frogs and deciding on relocation say due to human intervention of their natural habitat. There is a lot to be taken into consideration. Immensely so. Yet the question remains what is the environment really? And from whose perception? Everything we need is made from nature. Are we part of this wonderful cycle? Indeed we are. How are we managing these resources? We would rather not answer that. Instead we would grab our shovels and plant trees to the best of our knowledge and at least try make a difference from our somewhat incomplete specialized knowledge. Is this working? There are many solutions on isolated levels yet to achieve a harmonious level of integration on sustainability, I believe, there should be one in particular. How is that possible? We should ask nature this and I believe we would receive a tree rustling answer. A flock of screaming birds would know, for example wild animals are more environmentally aware of their ‘carbon footprint’ than we are and it is in fact their nature to behave like this. A wild impala won't overeat itself on one particular tree, it would graze from one tree to the next, fertilizing each one in return keeping these randomly chosen trees healthy and growing for the next wild animal. Domestic stock are to be kept an eye on should they find a nice tasting tree or else the tree would destroy it quickly. I believe the answer comes back to our type of processes. Are they sustainable? Should these be made sustainable and would it work? I believe, should we follow the greener road, doing so might be hard and difficult at first. Imagine going from one restaurant to the next only to nibble a bit at each one. Impossible some of us would cry out and do something easier like ordering a bit from each restaurant instead. There. Done. I’ve done my share. Too bad our environment doesn’t work this way. It follows only one road and that is sustainable processes. We should heed her examples. What the environment is I believe is up to everyone to chip in and contribute, once everyone has had their say we can only then conclude that is what nature is, every one of us. |
