CURRICULUM PROJECT 2

INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS

 

"Nature 101: Readings & Key Concepts"

 

Source : Robert P. Watson, "Introduction," in Robert P. Watson, Dwight C. Kiel , and Stephen F. Robar, Managing Environmental Policy: A Casebook (Krieger Publishing, 2004)

 

Reading 1. Canary in a Coal Mine: An Overview to Environmental Problems

 

Questions and activities for this essay:  

- What are some of the most pressing environmental problems today?  

- Why has humanity generally been slow to accept, much less act on, the indicators that our natural world is being harmed?  

- What do you believe are the keys to making environmental protection a national priority?  

- Look up on the Internet one of the environmental disasters mentioned in the essay and find out the current status of the issue.  

-  Think about ways that you can help the environment both in your everyday life and as a student.  

 

Sounding the Alarm

  The protection and preservation of the natural environment emerged in the late twentieth century as a leading public policy priority, not only in the United States, but worldwide. Environmental protection has also become a fundamental function of most governments, as a result of the growing realization of the connection between a healthy planet and human quality of life, if not the very survival of our species.

  At the dawn of a new millennium it would seem that among the challenges promising to define the twenty-first century are globalization, terrorism, ethnic relations, artificial intelligence, and technology. But, to that list, one could add such concerns as world hunger, population growth, food production, species extinction and biodiversity, toxic waste disposal, global warming, and a host of other environmental issues.

  Why is the health of the natural environment still a cause for concern over three decades after the start of the modern environmental movement and first Earth Day? How is it that so many environmental problems are included in the aforementioned list of the central issues facing humanity in the new century and millennium? Perhaps an analogy best addresses these questions.

  Coal miners of an earlier era adopted the practice of taking a canary in a cage with them down into the mines where they worked. In addition to a mine collapse, a fear of every miner was pockets of underground gases released during the mining process, gases which typically were odorless and invisible to the human senses. Such gases were potentially lethal when inhaled for extended periods of time and, in the event a miner's axe struck a rock causing a spark, they often proved to be combustible.

  The presence of such gases could set off an explosion of devastating proportions when detonation devices were used to clear away rock. Miners, unaware of the presence of such gases, put themselves in great danger while doing their jobs. The canary, however, with smaller, more sensitive lungs, would succumb to the presence of gases before the miners. In effect, the canary served as an early warning system. When the canary fell off the perch, it meant gases were present and it was time to cease operations and get out of the mine.

  Just as in the case of the canary, the Earth has many early warning signals indicating threats to the health of the planet. Such signals provide not only a barometer for gauging the health of the natural world, but also offer a report card of sorts on human relationships with the environment, and an early warning system that something is wrong.

 

The Nature Around Us Depends on the Nature Within Us

  The key is to recognize, understand, and heed the warnings. They are out there.

  For instance, the rapid loss of virgin rainforest in Amazonia owing to relentless logging and ranching operations and the accelerating pace of destruction seen in the latter part of the twentieth century threaten to deplete this natural treasure.

  The result of continued destruction of the Amazon rainforest is the loss of indigenous peoples and cultures of the region; countless species of insects, birds, flowers, and other organisms; a source for much of the world's medicines; a vital purifier and replenisher of oxygen; a stabilizing force in the rainfall and weather patterns in the region; precious nutrients and top-soils that would be washed away; and the integrity of the region's rivers and coastal estuaries that would be awash in the resulting soil erosion and runoff.

  An there are other early warning signs and evidence of human fallibility. Consider the following:  

- the increasing pace at which the polar icecaps are melting  

- the record numbers of species of flora and fauna going extinct (a rate higher than anytime since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 millions years ago)  

- the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska  

- Iraq's deliberate detonation of oil wells and flooding of oil into the Persian Gulf during the first Persian Gulf War on 1991  

- the rate of human population growth in regions least able to sustain it  

- the nightmarish pollution and environmental degradation in former East Germany and the Soviet Union, exposed after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s  

- the near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in the late 1970s  

- the Soviet Union 's Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1990s  

- record droughts and temperature highs in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s  

- worldwide coral bleaching (the dying of this vital marine ecosystem)  

- decreasing fish harvests in each of the world's oceans, suggesting severe over-fishing  

- the discovery by NASA scientists of gaping holes in the ozone layer above the polar regions, necessary for screening dangerous rays from the sun  

- the energy crisis of the 1970s, continued dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, and the geopolitical consequences of rising oil and energy costs  

- the toxic waste exposure at Love Canal in New York in the 1970s  

- dying forests in southeastern Canada and northern New England due to acid rain  

- the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in New Orleans in 2005  

To even the uninitiated, the canary appears to have fallen off its perch. It is time for the miners to leave the mind. It is time for us all to heed the warnings and change our relationship with the natural environment.