Are the environmental problems we face today new?
Many would argue that the environmental problems we face
today is nothing out of the ordinary.
We have been facing environmental problems since as early as 1550 when
the theory of Easter Island was developed.
In Anderson’s article, The
lesson of Easter Island, she mentions Heyerdahl’s theory on how humans are
a prime reason why we are facing environmental problems. Thor Heyerdahl is the author of the
book Aku-Aku, in which he discusses his theory on how the Easter Island was
developed.
“The Easter Island lies in the Pacific Ocean, 3,200
kilometers off the west coast of South America” (Anderson, 2007). The island is
well known for the massive stone status that are scattered across the island
that average to be over six meters high.
Many anthropologists have considered Easter Island a ‘mystery’ in which
many theories have been developed on how the massive stone status were
scattered across the island.
Heyerdahl’s “argues that the island was first settled from South America
and that from there, the people inherited a tradition of monumental sculpture
and stonework”(Anderson, 2007).
The Polynesians were the first settlers of Easter Island and
quickly discovered that they had very little resources but managed to live on
the island with a diet of sweet potatoes and chicken. Because the crop production took very little effort and
there was plenty of time, the Polynesians “engaged in elaborate rituals and
monument construction”(Anderson, 2007). As the Polynesians developed their monuments
transporting them became a problem.
However, they quickly found a solution to their problem in which they
used tree trunks as rollers to transport their monuments across the
island. They relied on human power
to drag the statues across the island because the lacked any type of animal
force. Because the developed of
the status became famous the population of Easter Island grow 7,000 at its peak
in 1550. When the Easter Island
“was at its peak, it suddenly collapsed, leaving over half the statues only
partially completed around Fano Raraku quarry. “The cause of the collapse and the key to understanding the
‘mysteries’ of Easter Island was massive environmental degradation brought on
by deforestation of the whole island”(Anderson, 2007).
In the eighteenth century the first Europeans that visited
Easter Island found that it was completely treeless. The theory behind the Polynesians having to do with the
deforestation applies in this situation. Scientists have found that since the
Polynesians used tress to transport their monuments they cut done most of the
forest as well as cleared their path to transport the monuments across the
island. As the Polynesians
continued to cut down tree resources started to decrease, which affected most
of the Polynesians life styles.
“The storage of trees was forcing many people to abandon building houses
from timber and live in caves, and when the wood eventually ran out altogether
about a century later everyone had to use the only materials left”(Anderson,
2007). The life style of the
Polynesians became more difficult because of the deforestation they caused on
the Easter Island when building and transporting their monuments. Humans are a prime example of how we
are the reason for environmental problems. We as humans are taking the earths resources for granted and
are taking more resources than needed.
As seen in the Ecosystems
and Human Well-Being: Synthesis, (figure 2) one can see how they have
conducted a study to show how much the earth’s land is becoming
deforested.
Just as early as the 1550’s the earths land has been
deforested and is becoming an environmental problem because it will start affecting
other products that are produced by wood.
According to the article “Global Deforestation” states that
humans have removed forest mostly for fuel, building materials and to clear
land for farming. Just like the Polynesians,
we are removing forest to benefit us in other ways but are harming the earth’s
resources by taking away its resources.
The argument here is that we as humans will eventually take away the
earth’s resources to the extent of not being able to produce the product that
are produced by the earth’s resource like wood.
Hi, Olivia;
ReplyDeleteWow, you have given us a lot more information about Easter Island! Nice! Could you include the perspective of the Ecosystem Millennium Assessment reading into your blog? How might this reading support your argument?
Good point on deforestation all over the Earth. What do you think individuals could do to help prevent or slow down this epidemic?
ReplyDeleteDr. Armstrong, I could have included the four major problems that are stated in the beginning of the Ecosystem Millennium Assessment reading, in which they mention how these four problems associate with the management of the world's ecosystems and how they are already causing harm to people. 1. Humans have been changing the ecosystems over the past 50 years which are causing largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber and fuel. 2. The changes that have been made to the ecosystems have lead to significant net gains for humans but have caused degradation of many ecosystem services. 3. The result of degradation of ecosystem services could grown substantially worse and could cause an impediment to obtaining the Millennium Development Goals. 4. The problem of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services.
ReplyDeleteIn these four problems one can apply them to the Easter Island reading because we see these problems occurred to the Polynesians. Although we are not given the information that others lived on the Easter Island before the Polynesians, we can see that there is a trend of humans over using the earth's resources and consuming more than what is needed. We see that the the first problem applies to the Polynesians and how removing the forest caused them more harm than what they could handle. Leading to the problem number two in which they were only removing the forest for the well being of human net gains which led to degradation of an ecosystem. Eventually they were unable to produce any type of food or shelter for they families which we can see in problem number four which talks about the challenge of reversing degradation while meeting increasing demands for their services.
These four problems can support my argument that in today's society we are seeing the same problems that were seen since 1500's. The environmental problems we face today are not new and we as humans have been taking advantage of the earth's resources for granted. As for deforestation is occurring more to produce other resources we are harming other ecosystems and won't be able to receive what they other ecosystems can provide for us if we continue to live the way we are.
Larissa, I think as individuals we should take into account to live a more sustainable life style. In today's society we are being more informed every day on how we could live a more sustainable life style, however I don't think that it is being forced as much as it should be in certain states. As an interior design student, sustainability is a main focus when designing building structures. I believe in order to cut back on deforestation, individuals need to realize the harm we are doing by consuming more than what is needed. I believe that the government needs to step in and make laws in every state, that state that everyone needs to recycle.
Great job, Olivia! Thanks so much for your extra work!
DeleteGreat job, Olivia. I like your focus on deforesting. I agree that we are taking for granted what we have and we are possibly using way too much. We, as humans, need look back and see that we are using way more than our ancestors---why? We have the technology nowadays that allows us to use more of our resources, but we also have the technology to slow down the harmful actions we are committing to our planet, and the technology to come up with solutions to these issues.
ReplyDelete