Examining Global Environmental Problems 2012

Every time I drive down I-95 to go home, I go by a cow pasture that is dotted with multiple billboards. It is such a jarring image because there are two totally opposite elements: nature and industry. The scene reminds me of the film “This Space Available,” which I saw a few weeks ago. When Dr. Szulczewski told the class that UMW would be screening the documentary, I watched the trailer and knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see it. The movie focuses on visual pollution in the form of billboards, and it takes the stance that companies are invading our space without our consent. Here are a few numbers to put things into perspective… A person living in an urban area sees an average of 143,080,000 billboards each year. If all of the billboards in the United States were placed side-by-side, they would cover 60,000 football fields. Just one digital billboards uses 397,487 kilowatts of energy annually, which is around 14 times the amount of energy that an American home uses in one year. These illuminated billboards distract drivers and double the risk of car accidents. Those statistics are CRAZY! There is no reason that such huge numbers of billboards should be allowed anywhere, so why is this still an ongoing issue? The answer is simple, and it is one that is at the root of so many environmental problems: the tragedy of the commons.

Companies view empty space as theirs for the taking, something that they can exploit just to make a profit. Their attitude is “if I don’t use this space to promote my product, then someone else will.” Greed drives the advertising industry (which is dominated by only a handful of large businesses), and outdoor advertising is certainly no exception. As corporations push their products via billboards, they are pushing nature out of the minds of people as well. Humans have become so disconnected with nature, and most no longer appreciate the environment that is in danger of pollution. This article by Scenic America states, “Attractive communities and unspoiled scenic vistas are critical to our quality of life. Both encourage us to appreciate and maintain beauty and the natural environment.” Billboards take over the aesthetic wonder of nature because they block out trees and other scenery. In the documentary, a person being interviewed said that she was surprised when she saw the area behind a billboard that had been removed. She had no idea that there were trees being blocked by it, and I think that is a downright shame. How can people value the environment when they can’t even see it?

Another issue concerning billboards is environmental problems. Trees are cut down so that the signs are visible from the road, and deforestation causes ecological issues, such as erosion and the disappearance of carbon sinks. The 397,487 kilowatts of energy that one digital billboard uses each year put tons of carbon dioxide into the environment and depend on nonrenewable fossil fuels. These are serious problems that are putting our environment at risk all at the expense of companies that are driven to make money in any way possible.

So what can people do about it? Urging lawmakers to take action is one step that can be taken to combat this invasion. It can be on a local level—contacting your city council, for example—or on a state level by contacting the Congressman who represents your area. The documentary features an interview with the mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the eighth largest city in the world. He banned outdoor advertising in Sao Paulo, and if a city that big can do it, then why can’t it happen elsewhere? Spreading the word to friends and family is another way to take action. If more people know about this issue and choose to do something about it, then more pressure will be put on lawmakers to implement a change.

Before watching the documentary, I never thought of billboards as visual pollution. I have always believed that the media is too present in our lives, but I only focused on television and magazines—the issue of billboards never occurred to me. It is indeed visual pollution, and the film sums up the underlying problem in one sentence: “You’re all fighting for space . . . that actually is not yours.” Corporations feel entitled to take over empty space in order to advertise their products, but the reality is that they are not entitled to that because no one owns that space. It is up to us to take a stand and say that we want our space back. We should not have to be bombarded with billboards everywhere we go. In the movie, one man stated, “The majority of the work I see now feels that this intrusion on your life is worthwhile, and I think it’s insulting.” I agree, and it’s time we say that enough is enough.

I found this article today about yet another invasive species. It’s called the Asian tiger shrimp, and it is native to Indo-Pacific, Asian and Australian waters. Another article, which is from the USGS, states that the cause of this invasion is not yet clear. It goes on to say that USGS scientists began monitoring this species “in 1988, when nearly 300 of them were collected off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida within three months. Scientists tracked the cause back to an isolated incident that accidentally caused an estimated 2,000 animals to be released from an aquaculture facility operating at that time in South Carolina.” The tiger shrimp reappeared in 2006, and there have been other sightings since then. Last year drew lots of attention to the problem because the tiger shrimp population multiplied by almost 10 times. Although scientists don’t think this resulted from the 1988 incident, it shows that aquaculture can be dangerous to native species, which is something we discussed in class a few weeks ago. I don’t know how the scientific community will combat this problem, but I sure hope a solution will be found sometime in the near future!

The issue of conservation is one that is changing and transforming to mean different things in today’s society. Conservation can be defined in many ways, but ultimately can be defined as an act of sustaining a particular resource in order to ensure its preservation in the future. The concept of conservation in the twenty-first century was really illustrated in our guest speaker last week form the Masai of East Africa. Many of the fundamental environmental problems that were talked about can be all traced back to the need of better conservation practices. The main issues highlighted in the discussion being; land degradation, pollution of air and water, degradation of aquatic Eco-systems, and deforestation.

What is shocking is that these problems plague almost every third-world country, but are also plaguing our own. Conservation efforts, as outlined by the guest speaker, are slim to non in East Africa. This is mainly due to the fact that many of the agencies out there promoting conservation efforts are poorly funded and poorly staffed. For example, he mentioned that one of the main park conservatories which housed hundreds of elephants was being decreased in size dramatically and the elephants were actually consuming the vegetation. The park was apparently unable to police such a  large property range and was forced to squeeze a large number of animals on  a smaller sized property. The animals depleted the vegetation, which serves as a  prime example of land degradation due to limited and poor conservation efforts. After looking further into this problem i discovered that slowly, things are being done to educate people on the importance of Eco-system conservation and the future implications of wild-life conservation and protection. I found evidence of many different conservation efforts specifically for East African Park Services. 

In Diamond’s Collapse there are a few fundamental environmental problems he outlines; deforestation, soil erosion, water management issues , over-hunting and fishing, and increased human impacts (Diamond, ch 1).  Diamond also places a heavy emphasis on a society’s response to these environmental problems. For instance Diamond outlines water management issues, as we have seen in case studies from less developed countries the government plays a very limited, or sometimes absent role in providing drinking water for it’s citizens. This government inaction only increases the severity of an environmental problem. Throughout this course we have outlined many environmental factors which can cause the collapse of a society, this illustrates how fragile our Eco-systems are and how important a role they play in the vitality of our Earth. Diamond also emphasizes that all collapses rely on the way in which a society responds to the environmental problem (Diamond, ch 1). This further highlights the complexity of modern environmental problems.

Whats has become clear though is that there are a vast majority of environmental problems plaguing the Earth today, but with these problems comes an array of innovative solutions which can potentially save our precious planet. We have discussed this semester, a wide variety of environmetnal solutions from government regulations to education. It has become abundantly clear that not just one simple solution can fix such a  complex problem, like clean drinking water for instance; many different actions must be taken here to ensure access to a community. Moreover; the extremely prolific issue of clean drinking water is one in which alarms many first-world citizens, but even today the lack of access in these rural communities is astounding. This illustrates the fact that many environmental problems that we are facing today are very large-scale issues that millions of people are suffering from, these problems require big solutions which are often complicated and expensive. It is clear to me that many resources must be used in order to act on  environmental problems. These problems must be solved by understanding the complexity; anthropologically and environmentally, in order to promote sustainability and hopefully instill long term solutions! 

According to dictionary.com conservation is the “official supervision of rivers, forests, and other natural resources in order to preserve and protect them through prudent management.” We as a nation have been actively conserving our country’s pristine areas since 1872 when Yellowstone National Park was first established.  We have several organizations dedicated to their protection, such as the Sierra Club and the SCA. In other countries, unfortunately, they are not as lucky as America to have such a solid protection of the parks. In areas such as Tanzania conservation is jeopardized by certain issues such as land degradation, destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity, and pollution. In the United States the government is the main source of protection. However, in East Africa the government is part of the problem. Farmers are displaced from their land, without compensation. They cut down trees in the forests and slowly destroy the vegetation and habitats. 30 percent of the land is dedicated to conservation and the people do try hard to keep it that way.

I thought that the speaker had a lot of very interesting things to say. In particular, his ideas about preserving the parks. To let the people be involved and let them have a connection to the park.  As Americans our connection to parks is that we want to have them for recreation. So I feel like it never crosses our minds that we should physically be involved in protecting the park. The government keeps them safe and we respect them. It just shows how different the societies are. In East Africa they rely on the products of the forest to survive. Therefore they need incentive not to harvest those products, like timber. The speakers ideas are great and it really, once again, reflected and underlying solution. Education. It has really become apparent to me that education is what is going to help the conservation effort here in America and everywhere else. Even if it’s just learning about things that indirectly help the land, like learning methods of farming that involve less water and pesticides.

This semester I have really learned a lot in this class. We went from very broad (why civilizations fall) to very specific problems (rabbits in Australia). And even though we spent a heavy amount of time on the problems we also looked at solutions and brainstormed some of our own. This class has taught me a lot. And there is so much that I can apply to my life. I never realized that there was so much I could do, small changes that I could make, that could help save the environment.  I believe that those changes are some of the most important things that I will bring away from this class.

To me the idea of “Global Environmental Problems and Solutions” still holds the same meaning that it did before this class. However, a more specific meaning. When I first heard the phrase I thought of it as many countries with many different problems. Deforestation was a problem in the Amazon and soil depletion was a problem was an issue in Australia. But as the semester went on it became clear that the whole world has the same environmental issues. In the southwestern United States we suffer from falling water levels, the same thing is occurring in the Sahel. Deforestation is a problem in almost every country with trees. There is no environmental problem that one country faces that is not a problem in another country. Sometimes one problem effects many countries, like overfishing. We have global problems, so we need global solutions. One solution will not fix all. Even if we suffer the same problem there have to be different ways of fixing it. But globally we need come together to help each other overcome the problems we face. According to Lester Brown in his book Plan B. We need to mobilize at wartime speeds if we are to fix the problems that we are facing. The damage might not be reversed but it can be stabilized.

In some ways this class has really made me concerned about the state of our world and has made the world seem like a smaller place. One country can have a big impact. But in other ways it has really restored my faith. Seeing what kinds of things people are doing to help. The solutions are out there, we have the technology and the ability to change. We just need a little motivation.

I found this article, which is quite alarming. Fishermen are attempting to catch great white sharks because they want to sell their jaws and fins; this reminds me of people killing elephants for their tusks. The IUCN Red List classifies the great white shark as “vulnerable,” and I hope this awful practice can be stopped before it puts the great white sharks on the threatened or endangered species list!

Well folks, we’ve reached the finish line.  Global Environmental Problems (and Solutions) has come to an end…BUT it’s not really the end, is it?  Dr. S. left us with a few quick words of wisdom at the end of class on Tuesday that went something along the lines of continuing onward.  And she’s right.  These problems don’t stop.  And the solutions definitively shouldn’t.  That’s where we come into play.

On the first day of class we compiled a list of all the environmental problems we could think of, and if any of you remember, it was awfully long.  Since then, we discussed some of those problems in depth, finding the root of the issue and discussing possible solutions.