Humans_and_the_Environment

Humans and the Environment Human encroachment happens every day in the world. It happens when we kill the animals for their meat. Every day there are animals that are becoming extinct. There is an estimated extinction rate of plants and animals. This estimate is at least 75 species per day. This is happening from the loss due to human encroachment and the expansion of agriculture (Chefurka, 2008). So, to define human encroachment, it happens when we do the things that we do to the earth and its environment. For example, killing animals, the air pollution, war, and when we chop down trees and use them for paper and things like that. I feel there are things we can do to help preserve regions threatened by human encroachment. We could recycle more so that the trees do not have to be cut down. We could also grow our own gardens so that there will be more vegetation. We can make sure that our cars do not have a lot of exhaustion coming out of them. I there is a lot we can try to have it fixed. I think that the interests of competing groups should be balanced when considering human needs vs. the environment by understanding the difference. If we keep destroying the environment we will end up killing everybody. It wouldn’t just be the animals and their habitat. I think we need to consider the long-term effects of every choice made. If we do only the necessary things the damage wouldn’t be as bad. For example, the drilling for oil in Alaska, there is a lot of controversy over this issue. Some believe it will harm the natural wildlife and some believe it will be great for world oil markets. This controversy has been going on since 1977 (Wikipedia, 2010). I do feel that the neighboring countries should intervene in an attempt to protect the ecosystem that has been impacted by the oil spill. I feel they could have helped even though they were not invited by the U.S. I think the benefit from this would have been the oil spill would have been cleaned up quicker and there would have been less animals harmed. A potential downfall could have been it started a war between the other country and the U.S. I honestly do not think there would have been a war. I think that we would have been ok with another country helping to clean it up. References Chefurka, Paul. (2008). The ecology of overpopulation. Retrieved November 17, 2010, from http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population%20and%20Food%20Production.html Wikipedia. (2010). Artic refuge drilling controversy. Retrieved November 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy