Protecting our planet: Goals for the next 20 years

Morgan
Marist College
Australia

Human society has had an enormous, negative impact on our immediate environment and our world in general. The resources that we excessively use and often take for granted are not limitless, as they may sometimes seem. We, as a global community and as individuals, have only recently become aware of the consequences of our actions. The havoc we have wrought, not only on our world but also on our nations, societies and communities, is incredible. But now that we have been enlightened as to what is really happening around us, we need to change quickly. What can we do in the next 20 years? How can we change our society to make the world a cleaner and fairer place by 2026?

In order to ensure that our life and the life of all things on this planet will continue, we need to focus on battling climate change by reducing carbon emissions and changing to renewable energy as soon as possible. We need to review our impact on the world's ecosystems, especially in our use of resources. We need to adapt to be able to deal with our rising and ageing population, and we need global consensus and awareness on these things if they are ever going to take root.

In Asia, since the agricultural revolution, irrigation has tripled and the famous Ganges of India is now stagnant. In 2050, it is predicted that there will be about nine billion people on Earth, and average incomes will be four times what they are today. Countries such as China and India, which currently use their water unsustainably to feed their populations, will be unable to do so in the future, because, according to Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN's Millennium Project, ‘the world has no more rivers to take water from'. He also predicts China to be the largest carbon dioxide emitter by 2010. India is currently constructing eight 4000 mw power stations. Those in New Delhi talk of the need for accelerated growth, and that dealing with climate change will be 'a brake on the economy'.¹ Therefore, the developing countries of the world need to be given assistance in realising and dealing with the consequences of such large-scale industrialisation. Industrial development worldwide should be slowed, in order to allow for the development of easily accessible and widely available renewable energy. This is the key to helping our planet. The unsustainable practices in countries worldwide, especially in the developing ones, need to be halted and replaced at an appropriate pace. This would allow for such large changes to cause minimal disruption to countries and their people.

Together, developed and developing countries can form an agreement about the future directions of our lifestyle, development, and sustainability. This will then be easier to implement into the global structure.

Our ageing and rapidly increasing population is having a dire effect on Earth. The limited resources available, which are already being severely tested by our 6.3 billion people, will hardly be able to cope with another 2.7 billion in the near future. We need to push for sustainable practices worldwide. In order to get such ideas put into practice, we first need to try and balance the world's wealth amongst all countries. This means that the developed countries should assist the developing and undeveloped countries to grow in an ecologically sustainable manner. This would then mean that countries that have developed in such a manner would be more able to follow and support such ideas. But that's a long-term idea.

In the next 10 to 15 years, the best thing for the planet, in my opinion, is to reduce and eliminate those areas of resource consumption that are not necessary or truly important to human life. The best area to reduce or eliminate is that of fashion, as excessive quantities of oil, leather and other goods are used and wasted in the production of various makeup products and designer clothing. This reduction can be achieved by unpopular means, such as passing legislation to restrict the manufacture of such products, or by means similar to those in other countries, such as charging fees for the amount of greenhouse gases released. This last method, however, doesn't actually reduce the amount of fashion products being made. Personally, I feel the best option is to legally restrict the amount of fashion products that may be made by a company, based on its size and number of employees. Realistically speaking, all areas of human life need to be made more efficient in some way or the other, because of increased demands from an increasing population.

It is more difficult to deal with the issues associated with an ageing population. We can reduce our resource consumption on a per capita basis, but we can't reduce the number or age of the population. Restrictions on childbirth may be seen as inhumane, and in some cases may violate human rights. In my opinion, there is no worldwide or national solution to the ageing population.

Our rampant use of resources over the years, as well as how we have obtained these resources, have greatly damaged the environment, in particular the habitats of animals and the atmosphere. Our damaging of these two aspects of the environment is closely related: the destruction of habitats creates greenhouse gases and greenhouse gases damage the air quality of various habitats. As a result, the problems need to be dealt with at the same time. What must be done, first of all, and at a rapid pace, is to substitute as much non-renewable energy for renewable as possible. This substitution can be achieved through heavy funding into renewable power technologies, which can be drawn partially from the budgets of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Slightly raised taxes are another effective, albeit unpopular, technique with which to raise funds for renewable energy research. The energy source that should be looked into the most is solar, because of its immense availability when compared to sources such as wind power, which occurs only when the wind is blowing, and water, as the world is currently in a water crisis. Subsidies and rebates by the government for solar panels would greatly assist in the spread of solar energy throughout the world.

But more than just changing to renewable and clean energy sources needs to be done. We also need to personally and nationally reduce our activities that create greenhouse gases. This is especially so in Australia, which has an average of 26 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person every year. This makes it the world's largest emitter of such gases per person. To address this we need to change from electrical water heating to solar and from fossil fuels to green power. To become carbon neutral, we can also reduce or offset our gas emissions. Australia can assist in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through two easy steps: passing legislation to increase its Mandatory Renewable Energy Target to 25 per cent by 2020, which is currently at eight per cent, and by charging carbon taxes or emissions trading, as other countries are doing, where households are charged for each tonne of greenhouse gas, particularly carbon dioxide, they create.

But even if all this were achieved, more would still need to be done, especially with regard to water resources and biodiversity. And then these improvements would need to be maintained and, difficult as it may be, constantly improved upon to ensure they could accommodate extra changes in our world. But if the world can embrace these changes in order to cope with what we have done over our 200 years of industrialisation, we will be able to protect our planet.

List of sources

http://www.ssat-inet.net/Default.aspx?page=264 http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1104#2 http://environment.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1996350,00.html Top     Senior Presentations     Discuss this presentation     Previous     Next