Going Grey

Back when I was in 2A, we had a guest lecturer in our Introduction to Environmental Assessment course who talked about environmental issues and problems with the environmental assessment process.  I don’t remember the details but what I do remember is the underlying tone in his presentation – the world is doomed.  Basically, his main point was that we are past the point of recovery.  We have brought a problem upon ourselves from which there may be no recovery.  Leaving that lecture, we all felt kind of depressed about the state of the environmental world, but easily brushed it off and moved on.

But how do we change?  Can one piece of recycling at a time really work?  My opinion – no.  Using bottled water as an example: if you don’t buy that bottle of water, then someone else will.  So go ahead and do what you can for the environment and feel great about doing it.  It doesn’t change the fact that the manufacturer who created that bottle is creating millions per day (the world consumes about 200 billion plastic water bottles per year).  What about recycling?  The truth is that it is simply too expensive to recycle.  Most companies would rather create new bottles than recycle them because it’s cheaper and easier.  After all, in the corporate world, what matters is money, not sustainability. We are living in a corporate world so unless the corporations change, the world can’t change.

What’s my point?  There is nothing we can do to prevent the environmental world from turning into a corporately manufactured world unless we come together as a population – not as a city, or a country, or a continent – as a population.  What are the chances?  Money rules our world and as long as there is an opportunity for expansion, we will expand and we will continue to do whatever it takes to make money.  When it comes down to it, corporations don’t care about the environment unless it somehow saves them money or makes them money.

You may be wondering how an environmental engineer can sustain (pun intended) this point of view.  After all, this is my life’s work, right?  The way I see it, there is nothing we can do. There are two key issues:

1. The human population is growing rapidly
2. The corporate goal is to make money, even if that means choosing the option that is not environmentally sustainable

Since the corporate world controls the environmental world, there is not much we can do as individuals to change it.

The good news?  The environment is not passive.  Have you ever tried to change the path of a river?  It fights to get back to its natural path.  That’s what the earth will do.  It will fight back.  It will return to normal in the end.  It will bounce back.  But will we?

Like I said, the shift from the environmental world into the manufactured world is not going to change unless the corporations change.  So educate yourself!  Pick a corporation that you’re concerned about and do some research of their production methods, their environmental resource strategies, the amount of pollution they create, and so on.  If you come across something that doesn’t sit right with you, then do something about it!  Write letters to them, or tell your friends about it.  Knowledge is power.  If more people know about the issues, then there is a greater chance that we can start changing!

Now in 3B, I’m not sure if I completely disagree with our guest lecturer.  Think about it – we are constantly expanding our manufactured world into the environmental world.  The population in 2010 was roughly 6.8 billion people.  At our current rate of reproduction, approximately 2.7 children per woman, we will reach a human population of 12 billion by the year 2050.  To keep our current living conditions, there is no option but to expand.  Eventually, if we don’t change, the world will be entirely manufactured.  Consider the amount of waste and pollution generated by high-population areas such as Beijing or Los Angeles and then spread it over the entire world.