Human Activities on Environment - Essay Example

28 June, Human Activities and their Influence on Environment Human ability to foresee put them into the position of adopting such habits today that would have a profound effect on the future. The collective beliefs of different societies has generated a worldview according to which, man is fundamentally dependent upon nature. In the last century, homo sapiens have become superspecies with the evolution of technology as a result of which, humans have started to meddle with the natural balance of ecosystem.

Human global population has tripled since 1936. The increase of population and growth of technology have jointly given rise to globalization. Human activity is the main cause of the current decline in the biosphere's rich diversity and productivity that support all life on earth. The global economy has sapped the meaning, value and significance of constraints of nature. Strawberries can be purchased in the mid of winter, thus we do not have to wait for the summers to come. In big cities, the ecosystem services of cleaning air and water, and decomposing sewage are controlled by humans with economical power.

The sense of local has been destroyed by the globalization of telecommunications and politics. The lack of natural constraints has allowed humans, the superspecies to grow beyond the nature’s capacity. In the later half of the 20th century, the notion of environmentalism emerged with the increase of environmental pollution of all sorts caused by human activities. Proposed solutions required humans to decide what to remove from and what to restore in the environment and make regulations accordingly.

Much of the human perception about science is shaped by the results of lab experiments that are mere imitations of reality and can not imitate the context in which things happen in the nature. This limited our capacity to realize the consequences of our actions and take suitable measures accordingly. DDT produced in the 1940s for killing insects on the crops led to biomagification and reduction in the number of birds in later years as a result of the disturbed and inappropriate nutrition of the species.

Likewise, chemically inert CFCs used as fillers in aerosol cans drifted in the upper atmosphere and caused ozone holes due to ultraviolet radiation. However, unfortunately, we have not known these things in time so as to prepare for them in advance. Accordingly, it is hard to predict the negative effects of today’s genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the future. All these facts are agreeable because they have occurred in the same chronological order as listed in (Suzuki, Mason and McConnell) and have acquired the attention of scientists for many years in the past.

The author found a way out of this quandary in the 1970s while hosting a tv show in which they learned about Haida Gwaii. MacMillan had been cutting off the woods for long which had instigated a lot of opposition. The author visited the island in 1980s to interview the local people. Upon being asked, a local artist said, “If they’re logged off, we’ll probably end up the same as everyone else, I guess” (Guujaaw cited in Suzuki, Mason and McConnell 16). Haida people’s love for nature made them different.

The author then interacted with aboriginal people from various parts of the world and all of them showed great connection with nature. The balance can not be created unless we own the nature and vest our identity into the four fundamental elements of nature, namely air, water, soil, and energy. Works Cited: Suzuki, David T.; Mason, Adrienne; and McConnell,? Amanda. The sacred balance: rediscovering our place in nature, updated & expanded. Canada: The David Suzuki Foundation, 2002. Print.