Environmental Science

            From an outsider's perspective, the increasing amount of people that are becoming richer seems like a good thing. There is less starvation, more resources are available to more people, and the horizons of communication and technology are being rapidly broadened. Unfortunately, every outsider does not possess the realistic perspective of an environmentalist. The truth is that our high consumption is leading to destruction. The essential ozone layer is being depleted, pollution is leaking into every clean crevice, and money is more of a matter than conscientiousness. Devastating events such as the Alaskan Oil Spill have killed thousands of animals and polluted 15% of the involved bodies of water. The sad part lies in the fact that this still has not awoken the eyes of the companies that export the oil to invest money into ensuring another disaster like that will not happen again. There are even solutions that would work, but the high cost has forced a decision against this option. Now that people's pockets are getting heavier, they are not using the extra money toward correcting the environment, but instead, developing more energy eating technology that does just the opposite. Waste, water, and wood can be discarded/replaced, even though they are among the most advertised of depleting resources, and even though people should not let them go to waste, the more permanent problems lie in paving roads over soil, shipping, packing, and disposing toxins into rivers and onto land etc. Man-made chemicals do permanently affect the well being of our earth, and because people are not realizing the effects immediately, in a few years, they will be more than apparent if they are not controlled. A premium problem is also the growing population. This number is exponentially increasing every year, and it is not going to become less of a problem. However, the increasing population is basically inevitable unless laws are established restricting the amount of children a family can have.