People and the Environment

Things I did today:

Brushed my teeth
Took a shower
Put some clothes on
Ate a sandwich
Grabbed my books and Notebooks
Checked my email
Took garbage out
Washed dishes
Dried my hands with paper towels
Turned-on my car
Drove to school
Bought a coffee
Went into the library
Read the newspaper online

My Thoughts:

One of the major reasons for which we do not apparently care about the environment, is that we are often unaware of the effects certain things have on it. For instance, I am not clear about how letting the water run while brushing my teeth negatively affects the environment. Additionally, we usually associate global warming with big industries, which release toxic waste on the environment; we tend to think that big oil spills and large metal industries are the sole contributors to pollution and global warming. Nevertheless, the truth is that we are connected to the environment in an innumerable amount of ways.

I am confused about what the environment is. Is it only all living things in the world like, plants and animals? Does it include other things? Are man made structures such as buildings and bridges part of the environment? I don’t know but I like to think of the environment as anything that affects us and anything that we affect.

It is complicated to understand the effects that individual things have on the environment. Our world is a complex chain of intermingling events, which as whole affect the environment. Therefore, understanding the effects on the environment caused by an individual event is a mere presumption. We have no real way of isolating any particular event and determining its effects.

I woke up this morning, brushed my teeth, took a shower, put on some clothes and ate something. Maybe, brushing my teeth negatively affected the environment because I left the water running for a little while and that, wasted some water others could use. Maybe, the clothe I am wearing was made out of cotton, and that cotton was grown on a field, which was initially a forest. Perhaps, deforestation affects the environment negatively by reducing the amount of carbon consumption. Nevertheless, the truth is that we cannot directly relate any of the former events to an effect on the environment.

I do not do much to care for the environment; part of it has to do with me being ignorant about the things, which affect the environment and about what I can do to care for it. Nevertheless, I generally try to be considerate about littering in the streets. Additionally, I also try to recycle as much as I can. For instance, I usually throw plastic bottles in the recycling bin around the LaGuardia campus. Although, I do not do much to care for the environment, I do have serious concerns about it. I am constantly thinking about the melting glaciers in the north and south poles. I constantly think about the deteriorating atmosphere. I think about the damages we are causing, which could be irreversible. But more importantly I am concerned about what the ultimate consequence of the deteriorating world could be: the end of humanity.