I learned a great deal about the problems our earth and its inhabitants face due to continued environmental degradation in my Ecological Basis of Environmental Issues course. We concentrated on understanding how anthropogenic interference has changed our climate and environment in order to better learn how to contribute to possible solutions. By examining how our world functioned in the past and comparing it to today, we were able to understand how our actions are damaging our planet and negatively impacting the future of all earth’s inhabitants.
Sustainability was the primary foundation of this course. Ecological Basis of Environmental Issues helped me understand how we can better work towards a more sustainable future. I not only learned about the problems that we all face, but I also was taught about the ways we can combat them. Although it is necessary for us to use some of the resources and ecosystem services that our planet has to offer, humans are abusing our access and overusing these assets. In order to be able to supply future generations with the same ecosystem services and resources we have today, we must find ways to provide humans and the environment with the resources necessary to survive without taking too much. Although specific methods differ widely depending on the situation, as we learned in Ecological Basis of Environmental Issues, it is always imperative that we find a balance between the amount of resources that the environment, humans, and the future requires.
Ultimately, this course showed me that if we do not actively work towards combating climate change and environmental degradation through more sustainable practices then we will have taken away the beauty, resources, and services of the planet from future generations.