In the
year 1984, George F. Will, a U.S. political columnist wrote, “Modern man’s
capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for
reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the
environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.” Our
environment, simply put, is everything around us. Ecologically speaking, it
represents the air, water, minerals, organisms, and all other external factors
that surround us. The environment that we live in is the only one that we
have, thus it becomes an essential issue for today’s technologically advanced
society.
There are
many concerns today about the state of our environment.
One doesn’t have to look very far to see the myriad of environmental
problems we face: overpopulation, ozone depletion, polluted air and water,
endangered species, global warming, landfills stuffed to the brim, and the loss
of forests. These potentially calamitous problems show two things: first, that
some people are concerned enough to make others aware of these problems;
secondly, that there are people in this world that do not care enough to change
their detrimental actions. Is the concern for the environment as precarious as some make
it out to be? Or, because of the
state of the environment, is the end of the world truly in sight?
In this project, you will have the opportunity to explore some of these
issues.
There exist a variety of points of view on the health of the
environment; among them, check out the following:
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"If I were a
Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be
burning the rain forest too.” Sting [Gordon Matthew Sumner] (b.
1951), British rock musician. International Herald Tribune (Paris, 14 April
1989).
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“I am I plus
my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve
myself.” José Ortega Y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish essayist,
philosopher. Meditations on Quixote, “To the Reader” (1914).
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“We
cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the
United States. We cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going to
the extreme on the environment.” George Bush (b. 1924), U.S.
Republican politician, president. Speech, 30 May 1992, at campaign rally,
California, on the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit."
-
“The
poor tread lightest on the earth. The higher our income, the more resources we
control and the more havoc we wreak.”
Paul Harrison (b. 1936), U.S.
playwright, director. Guardian (London, 1 May 1992).
-
“They’re busy
making bigger roads, and better
roads and more, so that people can discover even faster than before that
everything is everywhere alike.” Piet Hein (b. 1905), Dutch
inventor, poet. Road Sense, in Grooks (1966).
-
“That which is
not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.” Marcus
Aurelius (121-80), Roman emperor, philosopher. Meditations, bk. 6, sct. 54.
It
is your job to examine all the different points of view about the health of our
physical environment and scrutinize the logic
and evidence supporting them. You
will become an expert on the natural systems around us, how these work together,
and how we, as humans, fit in. You'll learn about the environmental resources we
have available to us, and about some of the issues relevant to these resources.
Questions
to keep in mind:
What are some physical factors that show the earth is
warming? What are some of the
“greenhouse gases” that we should be concerned about?
What are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and what is a synthetic compound?
How much will global surface temperatures rise by the end of this
century? Why is the alligator
birthrate declining in certain parts of Florida?
What are the drastic changes in animal population around the Great Lakes
region? Is cancer the big problem
for endangered species? What is
endocrine disruption? What are the
chemicals that disrupt embryonic growth? What
is a toxicologist? Does the
chemical’s toxicity depend on the amount of exposure?
In 1992-1993, what test hypothesis scared people? Are
there endocrine effects from the environmental levels of chemicals?
What are synthetic chemicals? Can
synthetic chemicals cause endocrine disruption?
What is DES? Why is DES a
massive endocrine disruptor? How do
you make effective public policy to protect human health in the absence of
complete scientific proof? Should
we act on environmental issues before we have scientific proof? How many endocrine disruptors are suspected in our society?
Questions to keep in mind:
What molecular magic makes cloning possible? Why did they succeed recently, when
they had failed before? What are the advantages to cloning mammals such as sheep
and pigs? "Humanized" org
