Is There a Relationship between Critical Environment Resources and Global Economies - Essay Example

Name: Tutor: Task: Date: Is there a relationship between critical environment resources and global economies? Natural resources are very crucial to human beings’ survival and existence on earth. Human beings’ general health and wellbeing are directly linked to the quality of the critical environmental resources such as water, soils, air and other biological resources. Our landscapes, seascapes and wildlife are not in anyway separable from our major cultures that inspire art and literature as well. Our economy and major industrial sectors are directly or indirectly reliant on functioning ecosystems. Many people believe that natural resources have their own fundamental value and that they are important for their own sake inconsiderate of their useful values. Technological developments over several years ago have given human beings extraordinary control over the critical environmental resources. It is however the great Industrial revolution of the 17th and 19th centuries that has made use of fossil fuels energy to power complicated machinery technology. This has enhanced human demographic explosion and exceptional industrial, technological and scientific development that has moved on until now. Economic growth does not necessarily ensure environmental sustainability for any nation. The connection between the two is far more complicated for developing countries given the dependence of a large section of their population on natural resources. The global population has grown rapidly with statistics as far as from 1650 and 1850 indicating it had doubled from around 500 million to 1 billion people (Laboy-Nieves 81). Industrial revolution then resulted in an increase in the human exploitation of the resources as well as an increase in wealth, health and population. General human population across the globe has also grown increasing the demand on these critical resources within the ecosystem. These resources seem indestructible and endlessly available. The resources; air, water and soil are increasingly being put in jeopardy, fishing in the major water bodies is exceedingly done, deforestation is aggravating soil erosion downstream. The reality is that human beings are either directly or indirectly reliant on these resources. The environmental effects of human actions are becoming more rampant with their devastating impacts on the environmental resources. Reports also show that about 40- 50 percent of the earth’s surface ice has been largely destroyed by the activities of humans with over 60 percent of marine creatures being overused above their limits. The atmosphere’s carbon dioxide has also rose by a greater percentage, statistics showing by over 30 percent since the beginning of the industrial revolution and almost 25 percent of avian life have also been affected(Institute for Environment and Development122). Majority have gone extinct in the last thousand years. There is now no doubt that the society is also becoming aware that the resources within the society are not only restricted but are also adversely affected by human beings’ actions. This means that human actions are imposing significant and mounting effects on biodiversity of the globe’s ecosystem thus lowering the flexibility and biodiversity. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has described the biological systems has human beings life “supporting system” giving out or providing vital ecosystem services (Haas 176). It has over 1000 global renowned scientists who survey the state of the earth’s ecosystem. They thereafter give out summaries as well as providing detailed guidelines on the way forward to decision makers. Their evaluation on the ecosystem makes a conclusion that only four have shown improvements over the past 50 years. Of these 15 are in a serious decline whereas 5 are in an uncertain condition. The notion of human reliance on these critical resources cannot further be ignored or assumed. Human reliance on the earth’s surface resources can probably be traced back to the origin of species occurrence on the earth surface. The relationship can be noticed from their interdependent nature on these resources. Humans benefiting from the products of nature to sustain themselves as well as shelter to protect them from unfriendly climatic conditions. In general these benefits are referred to as the services of the ecosystem. The services can also be in various groups in terms of their services such as provision, production of food and water, regulation, such as in the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and plants pollination; and traditional, such as recreational and spiritual. Water and food security, for instance are permanently linked. According to statistics, in the decade of 1951-1960 human water use were about four times more than in the past decades (Hesselberg 66). This was associated to the technological developments as a result of the economy and most especially the increasing land on irrigation, development in industries and power. This posed a negative effect on water as a resource altering the water cycles of the major water bodies as well as the water quality. This had also an effect on the general global water cycle. And currently about 35 percent of the earth’s water is believed to be unfit as a result of deteriorating aquifers and reducing the flows of major rivers. It is even expected to escalate should climate changes heightens. It will also be possible if the aquifers are overused and supplies polluted. Water demand has from 1961 to 2001 doubled due to industrial, agricultural and domestic uses by humans (Booth 63). Human beings now use about 40-50% of the globally existing freshwater in the approximate proportion of 70% for agriculture, 22% for industry, and 8% for domestic use and the total volume are gradually increasing. This means there is a cohesive relationship between human beings and biological systems derived from the products. The products of nature are also much reliant on the critical environmental resources for their survival. However, modern ideas of ecosystem services has challenged the idea that Earth’s natural resources are not infinite by pointing out changes in soil fertility .Human reliance on the environmental resources has been mainly escalated by the idea of capital and wealth acquisition. The destructions are currently threatening man’s existence on the earth’s surface, with man’s own actions having heavy repercussions on food productions which human beings are fully reliant on for a living. Currently there are close relations between human economic development and the global warming issue With the carbon dioxide transmission across countries and blamed on human actions, greenhouse gases concentrations which have dangerous repercussions on the earth as a planet. The economies of many great nations have achieved significant growths economically in the recent past. However, the traditional economic growth mode coupled with high investments, high consumption of energy rates and high emissions of gases causes a growing contradiction between economic growth and environmental resources. How to select an economic development strategy with the harmonious development of society, economy, ecology, and environment with the constraint of environment is useful in theory and practice. On the contrary, this has always seemed to offer great challenges across the globe. The industrial transformations across the globe, with rapid development of the world economy have all led to the consumption of a considerable amount of critical environmental resources. Environment quality is degrading seriously. Macro economic theories have however in the recent past begun to care about economic development alongside the environment. After the publication of The Limits to Growth by Mesdows in 1971, the relationship between economic growth and environment gained more and more attentions from people (Booth 63). They then realized the relationship between economic growth and environment has extremely important in making meaningful policies. If there is a contradictory relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, the best alternative for human beings is to restrict the economic growth and preserve the ecological environment in which human live. The relationship between global economic developments in this case means that environmental destruction goes hand in hand with the economic development status. The relation between the poor and rich has also had its fair share contributing to environmental destruction. Economic growth ought to be efficient enough to offer resources to meet everyone’s needs. Apparently this has not been the case across the globe and politics as well as wrong ideologies have taken a major role in deciding related policies. Decision making therefore relies on a few rich nations who have their personal interests at hand. The outcome is that most of the globe’s resources are assigned to meet the interests of a few rather than the majority. Many have now been rendered poor due to such politics and economic ideologies based on land rights and pressure amounting from the industry to manipulate the environment in a way that degrades diversity therefore affecting human population. Too much debt by majority of the third world countries has also contributed much to this scenario. The debts mean they experience problems hindering them from focusing on reasonable development. The debts forced on to the third world nations over the years by global donating institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary fund and through their refund programmes have stimulated rapid growth in their economies. All these have had destructive effects especially where they now need to program on how to reclaim the debts that covered issues on education, health and other crucial services. This has put major emphasis on coming up with cash crops as well as other commodities mainly for export but through employing environmentally destructive agricultural methods with adverse impacts on biodiversity. These require too inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers in order to compensate for the loss of the free services. Conclusion The dependent nature of humans on the critical environmental resources cannot be overlooked. History has proved that human beings are responding to the urge for even more resources by working hard to increase on their supplies. In the event of these processes, the resources are getting depleted. Suitable practices are therefore encouraged in these situations through managing the increasing demands for the resources. This can be made possible through lowering the level of usage or employing the use of renewable resources as much as possible as well as promoting practices that reduces resource utility while increasing the resource productivity at the same time. This can be employed at many levels throughout the economic sectors such as the manufacturing industry, agriculture, organizations of work, resource utilization patterns of household as well as other individual’s. There is also no doubt that human beings are living unsustainably and for the critical environmental resources to get back to the sustainable levels, then this will mean employing a lot of efforts and money. Ways of returning this to sustainable levels can be conducted in so many ways. These can be through the use of science to come up with better technologies hence promoting the preservation of critical resources. This may include the application of the renewable sources of energy. Others may include the adoption of lifestyles that are promoting conservation of critical resources. Promoting agreeable relationship between economic development and environmental quality will definitely serve as the best choice for human economic growth while improving the environment quality at the same time. This is true because environmental degradation associates with economic development stage. The ongoing challenge of recommending economic value to nature, for example through biodiversity restoration, is prompting disciplinary transformations in how we understand and manage the environment, social responsibility, opportunities for business and generally our future as species. Works Cited Haas, P.M .Environment in the New Global Economy.Edward Elgar Publishing. 2003 (1) 160-191 Jenkins, R.O.Environmental Regulation in the New Global Economy: The impact on Industry and Competiveness.Edward Elgar Publishing.2002 (2) 98-231 Hesselberg, J, Barton, J and Jenkins, R.Environmental Regulation in the New Global Economy: The impact on Industry and Competitiveness. Edward Elgar Publishing.2004 (2) 36-96 International Institute for Environment and Development. Environment and Urbanization.IIED Publishers.2002 118-134 Booth, D.E.The Environmental Consequences of Growth: Steady-State Economics as an Alternative to Ecological Decline.Routledge.1998 (2) 51-76 Laboy-Nieves, N.Environmental Management, Sustainable Development and Human Health.CRC Press.2008 (1) 68-94 Read More