The Life and Death of the Salt Marsh
In this excerpt, John Teal
and Mildred Teal talk about the significance of the marshesto the environment and the ecological importance that they
hold. They start by
describing in detail, an experience of what it’s like to walk in a marsh, but
then goes to say how the salt marshes are being threatened. “We destroy wetlands and shallow water
bottoms directly by dredging, filling, and building… The marsh would often have been much more valuable as a
marsh than it is in its subsequent desecrated form”, as described by John and
Mildred Teal describes how despite its destruction for human development, the
marsh will serve a greater purpose than we could possibly construct in its
place. They propose using the same techniques as those implemented
to save provincial and federal parks, which is to push for conservation efforts,
saying: “The battle between the forces of development and conservation need to
be won only once by the developers but must be fought and won every year for
conservation to triumph.”
Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
The main focus of this article, done during the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, is the call for immediate action for successful
environmental management. They
give the example that humans have rapidly changed ecosystems over the course of
history in order to meet and for most parts exceed the needs of the
planet. This has caused
significant, irreversible damage to the earths ecosystems, to quote the
excerpt: “Humans are fundamentally, and to a significant extent irreversibly,
changing the diversity of life on Earth, and most of these changes represent a
loss of biodiversity”. The excerpt
goes on to say 60% of the examined problems done by the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment are continuously being: “degraded or used unsustainably, including
fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation
of regional and local climate, natural hazards and pests”. Regardless of the economic gains made
from the ecological manipulation, the cost that comes from these changes, which
the world seems to be cashing in now far outweighs, the rate at which we are
recovering the environment, calling for immediate changes to our daily
lifestyles.
Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the
Environment
Our Stolen Future
In this excerpt, Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John
Peterson Myers talk about the potential threat that the chemicals released into
the environment possess. Examples
of hormone mimics exist within the population currently, and the number of
people becoming affected is on the rise. To quote the excerpt: “A number of
pediatricians from various parts of the United States have expressed their
concern about an increasing frequency of genital abnormalities in children,
such as undescended testicles, extremely small penises, and hypospadias, a
defect in which the urethra that carries urine does not extend to the end of
the penis, but it is virtually impossible to document these anecdotal reports. Rachel Carson once wrote: “Our fate is
connected with the animals”. This
statement is becoming more and more clear as the chemicals we are releasing in
the environment, affecting the biological cycles, which we ignored, have
inevitably come full circle and are now affecting us, despite the warnings the
other biological cycles have given us.
Environmental Justice For All
The term Environmental Justice was first coined c. 1980
during civil rights movements to call for the need that liberates, exclusively,
poor (and mostly black) neighbourhoods from garbage dumps, land fills,
incinerators and other things that might effect the health of those around
it. Starting in the 1920’s cities
have been dumping garbage in poor communities. Robert D. Bullard in this excerpt states: “Leaders
introduced the concepts of environmental justice, protesting that Black, poor
and working-class communities often received less environmental protection than
White or more affluent communities”.
Specific examples, such as Warren County, are given, putting
environmental racism on the map.
More nad more environmental justice networks and smaller community
groups are making their voices heard, calling simply for the need for
environmental justice regardless of where they are situated.
