The Big Issues

Over viewing all of the topics and issues that have been discussed in this class I feel that the most important environmental issues all revolve around human over consumption and misuse of our natural resources, which sort of includes all issues. One important issue that does need to be resolved soon is our energy usage. Our dependence on oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power is a problem that will have to be solved soon. Sooner or later we will run out of the natural resources and nuclear power is a volatile process. People have some extremely innovative ideas that need farther research such as bio diesel and using algae. It find the fact that the first engine was a diesel engine is extremely interesting and rather telling of its abilities. The problem we have revolves around economic politics. Those making money off of this already established business are going to use every last resource before looking for a new field to explore. As a society we need to demand that more money and effort be put into the research and development of renewable energy. On an individual scale we can simply be conscious and reduce our power consumption. Another issue with our society is how callously we use items then throw them away. We need to put more emphasis on the ideas of 'refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle'. The general push in our society today is to consume,consume, consume. This mindset is a big issue but one that is not likely to change quickly. This means we need to both try to fix this mindset and find better ways of packaging and producing products. Overall I enjoyed the debate portions of our class because it caused us to look at issues from different perspectives. Previously I did not know all of the issues surrounding recycling and find this information very useful. I feel like I have a greater ability to look at these social issues from a logical perspective because I know how to see things from the opposing side.