Keeping the Blind Side, Aside

Sylvia Negrete

Universidad de Monterrey ‘12

México

Our acts have consequences; it doesn’t matter how you call it, it happens. What are the consequences of polluting the air, the sea, the forest and every part the human touches? What are the consequences of throwing away garbage and not recycling, or constructing without efforts to respect nature?

According to Brant Olson, in a study done by GreenFacts’ Scientific Board, “3 billion to 6 billion trees per year” are cut down. That means that as we humans increase in density and the forests decrease, there is more carbon dioxide, less oxygen, more heat, less water. The atmosphere is changing and we are experiencing a climate change where the summer is longer and the winter shorter. The icebergs are melting. One of the largest icebergs in the world is breaking, according to satellite images and video taken by NASA in 2012.

We have to be careful. Nature is changing; the sea level is rising, which could cause flooding and intensify hurricane activity. Evidence of this is found in the IPCC's report "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis." According to the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” in the end, there will be no Arctic and Antarctic.

Animals are also affected by environmental changes. We are changing their habitats, their homes. As the years go by, more and more species are in danger of becoming extinct. 

Changes in the environment affect us all since we are all connected and we need each other. The sad part is that climate change has a bigger effect in the Third World countries, as evidenced by a study from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2005) showing that some of the important hot zones are concentrated in Central America, South America and Africa. Unfortunately, the countries creating the least amount of pollution have been most affected by it.

These are the consequences of being ignorant or avoiding the truth because of the economic impact it would cause to manage natural resources. It is a mistake to not remember that the Earth is our only home. We are not the only ones living on it; we don’t own the Earth. We don’t understand that if nature falls out of balance, we and future generations will experience the consequences.

By seeing the Earth as a resource, we see only the profit in a tree, in the sea, in an exotic animal, in the mountains, in everything. We are killing ourselves. Though it sounds radical it is the truth; however, truth is what we don’t want to hear.

We even hurt ourselvesin the food we eat. When we contaminate the water with chemicals, it kills many fish. These fish are later eaten by other animals that also get sick, and in the end, those animals are on our table.

According to the documentary "Food Inc.,” which analyzes the food system in the USA, farmers can’t talk about the conditions in which the animals are raised and employees can’t complain about the unsanitary conditions in the slaughterhouses. The reason, according to the interviews made during this documentary, is because if we knew the way our food was made, we would not eat it.

Many of the animals commonly used for food are injected with hormones, live in a non-hygienic atmosphere in cages, and are genetically altered, unable to move or even stand. Many of the animals are fed cheap food. For example, the cattle are fed corn when their normal diet should be grass. Some studies suggest that grass-fed cattle produce fewer E. coli, a bacteria found in the animals’ digestive tracts which is harmful to humans. The bacteria are found in the cow’s manure, which covers their ankles where they stand. When the cow is killed, the bacteria can infect the meat, and because humans are not resistant to these bacteria, we could die.  Infected meat was the cause of the death of a 2-year-old boy in 2001, according to this documentary. Since that day, his mother, Barbara Kowalcyk, is seen fighting for better food-safety laws by the USDA and supporting organic food. The question here is: Why do we even have to pay more for organic food than non-organic? All the food should be organic and with the same quality standards. How long do we have to wait to do something? As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

It is the time to start acting, by educating yourself and the people you care about. You can’t resolve what you don’t understand. You can’t defend what you don’t truly believe. It is up to us, future generations, to do something. Be an example in work, in the school, in the office. In the fight for protecting the environment, as David Brower said, “All of our victories are temporary, and all of our defeats are permanent.”

Sources:

An Inconvenient Truth. (2006) Documentary.

Daily Mail Reporter (2011) The Earth’s temperature risen 1C since the 1950s, claims new study. Retrieved from: http://cagw.mythicalunderworld.com/2011/11/12/the-earths-temperature-risen-1c-since-the-1950s-claims-new-study/

Food Inc. (2008) Documentary.

Kerr, D. (2012) NASA mission calculates global ice melt and rising sea levels. Retrieved from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-57373690-54/nasa-mission-calculates-global-ice-melt-and-rising-sea-levels/

Nguyen. T. (2012) World’s largest iceberg bigger than New York City. Retrieved from:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/worlds-largest-iceberg-bigger-than-new-york-city/10193

Olson, B. (2008) How many trees are cut down every year? Retrieved from:

http://understory.ran.org/2008/04/22/how-many-trees-are-cut-down-every-year/

Russell, J. B., F. Diez-Gonzalez, and G. N. Jarvis. "Potential Effect of Cattle Diets on the Transmission of Pathogenic Escherichia Coli to Humans" Microbes Infect 2, no. 1 (2000): 45-53. Retrieved from: http://www.eatwild.com/foodsafety.html

The Associate Press. (2012) 46-square-mile iceberg breaks off in Greenland. Retrieved from:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57474937/46-square-mile-iceberg-breaks-off-in-greenland/

The Huffington Post (2012) Barbara Kowalcyk. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-kowalcyk

The IPPC (2007). “Hurricanes and Sea Level Rise: Key passages from the IPCC's "Climate Change 2007.” The IPCC Report on Global Warming: Localizing a Global Story. http://ipccinfo.com/wg1report.php. Retrieved Aug. 2012.

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