Everyone in the world depends completely on Earth’s ecosystems and the services they provide, such as food, water, disease management, climate regulation, spiritual fulfillment, and aesthetic enjoyment, but over the past 50 years, humans have changed these ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel.Past actions to slow or reverse the degradation of ecosystems have yielded significant benefits, but these improvements have generally not kept pace with growing pressures and demands. Ecosystem degradation can rarely be reversed without actions that address the negative effects or enhance the positive effects of one or more of the five indirect drivers of change: population change (including growth and migration), change in economic activity (including economic growth, disparities in wealth, and trade patterns), sociopolitical factors (including factors ranging from the presence of conflict to public participation in decision- making), cultural factors, and technological change.
In what ways does damage to ecosystems affect human well-being?
Agriculture
Removal of production subsidies that have adverse economic, social, and environmental effects. Investment in, and diffusion of, agricultural science and technology that can sustain the necessary increase of food
supply without harmful trade-offs involving excessive use of water, nutrients, or pesticides. Use of response polices that recognize the role of women in the production and use of food and that are designed to
empower women and ensure access to and control of resources necessary for food security. Application of a mix of regulatory and incentive- and market-based mechanisms to reduce overuse of nutrients.
Fisheries and Aquaculture
Reduction of marine fishing capacity. Strict regulation of marine fisheries both regarding the establishment and implementation of quotas and steps to address unreported and unregulated harvest. Individual transferable quotas may be appropriate in some cases, particularly for cold water, single species fisheries.
Establishment of appropriate regulatory systems to reduce the detrimental environmental impacts of aquaculture. Establishment of marine protected areas including flexible no-take zones.
Water
Payments for ecosystem services provided by watersheds. Improved allocation of rights to freshwater resources to align incentives with conservation needs. Increased transparency of information regarding water management and improved representation of marginalized stakeholders. Development of water markets. Increased emphasis on the use of the natural environment and measures other than dams and levees for flood control. Investment is science and technology to increase the efficiency of water use in agriculture.
Forestry
Integration of agreed sustainable forest management practices in financial institutions, trade rules, global environment programs, and global security decision-making.
Living Downstream
The research from the book "Post Diagnosis" which resulted in the writing of "Living Downstream". Steingraber (the author) then explored the numerous sources of environmental pollution that she was personally exposed to while growing up in central Illinois. The book contains a detailed discussion of W. R. Grace and company's role in the pollution of the water in Woburn, Massachusetts; a town where a cluster of fatal childhood leukemia cases has occurred. Sandra goes on to mention the illness that she had as well as the ones that affected other members of her family. Years later, Steigngraber possessed a bulging file of scientific articles documenting an array of genetic changes involved in bladder cancer. These concern the ongoing presence of known and suspected bladder carcinogens in rivers, ground- water, dump sites, and indoor air. For example, industries reporting to the Toxics Release Inventory disclosed environmental releases of the aromatic amine o-toluidine that totaled 14,625 pounds in 1992 alone. Detected also in effluent from refineries and other manufacturing plants, o-toluidine exists as residues in the dyes of commercial textiles. Cancer incidence rates are not rising because we are suddenly sprouting new cancer genes. Rare, heritable genes that predispose their hosts to cancer by creating special susceptibilities to the effects of carcinogens have undoubtedly been with us for a long time.
What is wrong with the present system of regulating the use, release, and disposal of known and suspended carcinogens?
In full possession of our ecological roots, we can begin to survey our present situation. This requires a human rights approach. Such an approach recognizes
that the current system of regulating the use, release, and disposal of known and suspected carcinogens rather than preventing their generation in the first place, is intolerable. So is the decision to allow untested chemicals free access to our bodies, until which time they are finally assessed for carcinogenic properties. Both practices show reckless disregard for human life.
Our Stolen Future
Researchers in the Great Lakes region, as well as in Florida, on the West Coast of the United States, and in Northern Europe, had observed widespread evidence of serious and frequently lethal physiological problems. These problems included abnormal reproductive development, unusual sexual behavior, and neurological impairment, and were exhibited by a diverse group of animal species. . In examining our place in the evolutionary lineage, humans tend to focus inordinately on those characteristics that make us unique and living in a man-made landscape, we easily forget that our well-being is rooted in natural systems. Our regrettable experience with persistent chemicals over the past half century has demonstrated the reality of this deep and complex interconnection. All of us have accumulated a store of persistent synthetic chemicals in our body fat. Through this web of inescapable connection, these chemicals have found their way to each and every one of us just as they have found their way to the animals. At the end of the session, the scientists issued the Wingspread Statement, an urgent warning that humans in many parts of the world are being exposed to chemicals that have disrupted development in wildlife and laboratory animals, and that unless these chemicals are controlled, we face the danger of widespread disruption in human embryonic development and the prospect of damage that will last a lifetime.
What is an environmental hormone mimic, or disruptor?
The causative agents were identified as more than 50 synthetic chemical compounds that have been shown in laboratory studies to either mimic the action, or disrupt the normal function, of the powerful hormones responsible for sexual development and many other biological functions.
Environmental Justice For All
In the following selection, Bullard describes the history of the environmental justice movement, argues that even though environmental racism has been recognized for a quarter of a century, it remains a problem, and calls for government to maintain its commitment to protecting the environment for all Americans. In 1991, a new breed of environmental activists gathered in Washington D.C., to bring national attention to pollution problems threatening low-income and minority communities. Leaders introduced the concepts of environmental justice, protesting that Black, poor and working-class communities often received less environmental protection than White or more affluent communities. More than three decades ago, the concept of environmental justice had not registered on the radar screens of many environmental or civil rights groups. Since then, plenty of voices have been heard regarding environmental justice and discrimination, including that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who went to Memphis on an environmental and economic justice mission in 1968, seeking support for striking garbage workers who were underpaid and whose basic duties exposed them to dangerous environmentally hazardous conditions.
Does the environmental movement neglect issues of concern to the poor and minorities?
The environmental Movement does address the inequitable treatment of African Americans and other minorities in environmental planning and decision making, and he has taken an active political role in working with both political leaders and grassroots organizations to combat environmental discrimination.
Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services
Ecologists think the loss of biodiversity is a problem because it threatens the stability of ecosystems and the potential ability of life to adapt to changes in climate and other conditions. Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. Changes in marine biodiversity are directly caused by exploitation, pollution, and habitat destruction, or indirectly through climate change and related perturbations of ocean biogeochemistry. Although marine extinctions are only slowly uncovered at the global scale, regional ecosystems such as estuaries, coral reefs, and coastal and oceanic fish communities are rapidly losing populations, species, or entire functional groups. Experiment were performed and positive relationships between diversity and ecosystem functions and services were found using experimental and correlative approaches along trajectories of diversity loss and recovery. By restoring marine biodiversity through sustain- able fisheries management, pollution control, maintenance of essential habitats, and the creation of marine reserves, we can invest in the productivity and reliability of the goods and services that the ocean provides to humanity.
Why are commercial fisheries in decline?
Reserves and fisheries closures showed increased species diversity of target and non-target species, averaging a 23% increase in species richness. These increases in biodiversity were associated with large increases in fisheries productivity, as seen in the fourfold average increase in catch per unit of effort in fished areas around the reserves. The difference in total catches was less pronounced, probably because of restrictions on fishing effort around many reserves. Community variability, as measured by the coefficient of variation in aggregate fish biomass, was reduced by 21% on average.
What are your primary concerns about the oceans?
My main concern is pollution and the amount of garbage that ends up in our oceans especially plastic garbage, which decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food my marine animals. High concentrations of plastic material, particularly plastic bags, have been found blocking the breathing passages and stomachs of many marine species, including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins, and turtles. Plastic six-pack rings for drink bottles can also choke marine animals, as well as bottle caps being found in wildlife's stomachs after mistaking it for food.
What is anything do you plan to do about it?
The obvious answer would be to make sure everything you discard ends up in the right place, most importantly plastic. Taking the time to pick up whatever waste you can find lying around, because it all eventually ends up traveling in our waterways and finding its way to the ocean because the plastic particles are too small and are ignored by a water treatment plant.
Waterlife Documentary - The Great Lakes
This documentary highlights how important water really is to life, not just for humans but for literally everything on this planet. Chemicals appear in abundance within the everyday water we drink and use, because water treatment plants are designed to bacteria, metals, and solids. However they are unable to filter out the new class of chemicals from industrial to pharmaceuticals found in the water. The identification of these chemicals are of grave concern for many because the Great lakes contain the last remaining supply of fresh water left on the planet. When we drink the water, we are a part of that water, and as we are all a part of each other. The water unites us all together. 35 million Americans rely on the water from the great lakes everyday, 30% of the Canadian and 10% of the United States populations call the great lakes basin home. Each day 100 billion gallons of water evaporated from the great lakes, 25x more than all humans consume, we don't have the ice that we used to have which lowers the water constantly each year. Water is everything.
