DAY 27 – BASIC REQUIREMENT: CLEAN AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

I am talking to an astronaut who was sent into space. When she looked down onto the earth she saw the majesty of our planet in a way that the rest of us cannot do. She said it was a breathtaking experience that gave her a new appreciation of our planet and all that it represents.

Seeing the earth from space is something very few people will ever do. It can make a person understand it as our collective home and a place where we access the food we eat and the water we drink. It is where we get the materials to build our homes and anything else our minds can conceive of. Our human world is completely dependent upon the earth for our survival and ability to thrive.

If we could fly over every single thing created by human beings it would stagger the mind. How many buildings, roadways and cars cover the earth? How many manufacturing facilities and stores to shop in exist throughout the world? How many kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms with specific items in everyone of them are in every corner of this planet? Everything we have made requires the earth’s resources to make them.

The technological revolution has created the potential for human beings everywhere to have and do things our ancestors never could have or do. The zest for something better often looked at the immediate situation and didn’t consider what after affects our actions will have upon the earth. Without such consideration we didn’t know if and how we were altering the environment in ways that will do much harm irrespective of the benefits enjoyed by humanity.

As human knowledge has advanced in how to use the earth for our benefit there is also more of an understanding of the potential problems that may result from it. We now grasp that certain by-products of what we do can negatively affect the atmosphere, waterways and soil. They also can be harmful to human health and the well-being of various species of animals and plants. We also now see how human activity affects not only the immediate locale where it occurs but also how it often reaches into far away regions. Nothing is done in isolation and using the earth in a modern society is no different.

With billions upon billions of people on this planet who continually use vast amounts of resources we also need to be aware of the possibility that many of these resources are finite and may eventually become depleted. While humanity today enjoys the fruits of what the earth provides, future generations may not be as fortunate if we use up certain vital resources essential to a modern way of living life.

Humanity’s ability to grow food, use the waterways to fish for food and navigate our ships upon, use the skies to fly airplanes, construct buildings to live and work in, pave roads to travel upon and to make different products essential to our modern way of life has an effect on the ecosystem of the earth. I now realize that by ensuring that the earth is clean and sustainable we can lay a foundation for a healthy and viable earth in which to live for not only those of us who are alive today but also future generations.