Environmental Crisis :: essays research papers

Environmental Crisis"We Have An Environmental Crisis Because We Have A People Crisis - A Crisis ofPopulation Growth, of Wasteful utilisation of Resources, and A Crisis of Apathyand Inaction."An environmental crisis is an emergency concerned with the place in which everyhuman lives - the environment. A people crisis is an emergency with thecommunity that inhabits the world environment. A crisis of population poseth isa turning point where the environment can no longer sustain the amounts ofpeople which it contains. A crisis of apathy and inaction is peerless where thehuman race cannot be motivated to solve the problems with the environment thatthey themselves have created.The claim that we have an environmental crisis because we have a people crisisis valid because our environmental problems have largely resulted frompopulation growth, which has lead to apathy and inaction with regard to thewasteful consumption of resources. Examples are the desertification of the Sahelin Africa, the one child policy in China and the mis-management of our oceans.The Sahel is a strip of land that extends for more than 6000 kilometres acrossthe southern edge of the Sahara desert. It stretches from Senegal andMauritania in the west to Ethiopia and Somalia in the east. These nations areamong the worlds poorest.The area is one of loving and biophysical crisis because of the way thepopulation are forced to live they are destroying the productivity of the land.The alarming rate of population growth and ever increasing pressure on the landhave initiated an expansion of desert-like conditions into the Sahel - a processcalled desertification.Traditionally, the people of the drier, northern Sahel followed a nomadiclifestyle, constantly moving their herds of cattle, sheep and goats over largeareas in the front for suitable grazing land. These movements preventedovergrazing and lessened the likelihood of land degradation. With increasinghuman numbers, the summationd intensity of land use, and the harvesting of treesand scrub for fuel wood stake to overwhelm the regions fragile environmentand result in permanent ecological damage and declining standard of living.During the 20th century 3.9 billion people have been added to the worldspopulation.This is an increase of 244%. Rapid growth occurred because of the improvementof living conditions, reduced child mortality rates and increased lifeexpectancy.The population of undeveloped nations will continue to grow in the foreseeablefuture because at present 45% of the population is under 15 years of age.In the North the population growth is decelerate down because children areconsidered an expense. In Italy, Germany and Austria, the growth rate is