Humans believe that everything put on this earth was meant for our use. Animals were meant to feed us, along with plants. Water was meant for us to drink, the air is ours to pollute, and everything in the world is ours to use, destroy or whatever we wish to do with. This is harmful thinking. We are not the only species inhabiting the planet. There are many things we are doing that is hurting the nature around us, and we continue to do them without thinking of who or what we are hurting by doing so.
The meat industry is one of the major causes of climate change. It affects environment through deforestation and green house gases. In the world, America especially, people eat more meat than can be produced naturally, so to compensate, the industry must mass produce products--which is how these problems occur.
Two acres of rainforest are cut down every minute and a lot of that is so farms can be bigger to sustain more meat and feed more animals. Mostly, these animals are treated as if they are just a piece of meat because there are too many to care for properly. They are then slaughtered, the meat is processed and sent out to consumers who each eat on average 200 lbs. of meat per a year. Our appetite is hurting the planet for many species. If we continue down this path of destruction, there will be no animals to sustain us and no earth to sustain them. There are laws protecting the animals we keep as pets from cruel treatment, but there are no laws to protect the animals we eat.
Animals are going extinct. Humans have overpopulated the world, take up the majority of space and resources leaving very little left for the animals to live on. Due to this, pollution, hunting and other causes, there are many animals that are near extinction today. The Amur leopard, black rhino, mountain gorilla and polar bears are just a few of the species we are losing, let alone the bees and the Great Barrier Reef which is predicted to be half dead already, as it’ll continue to die as the year goes on and the climate gets warmer. This is just another way humans are exploiting the planet - we do not know how to live hand and hand with nature. To let it meet our needs without taking advantage or being greedy. We wish for more than the earth is able to provide for us. Because of this, every living being is suffering.
There is on average 400,000 children in foster care, which are children we have made that we cannot or choose not to provide for. The world has more people than nature can provide for and government officials choose now to defund Planned Parenthood, making it harder for teens (who already have a very high pregnancy rate) to have safe sex and prevent unwanted pregnancies. By doing this we are continuing to over populate an already overpopulated planet and hurting the environment further.
Commercialization is another major issue. People are taking up more and more space by the second. The world is always expanding and building but the land isn’t. We are leaving less and less room for other species to fill. We build houses and shopping centers all to satisfy our own needs, boost the economy and grow society, but we do not think about how that affects the rest of the world around us.
In order to sustain the environment around us we need to be much more cautious of the harm we are doing. If everyone chose to substitute some of the animal products they eat with other things, they would lesson each of their carbon foot prints and help keep the world healthy. The government could put a limit on how much meat could be produced on each farm or somehow could limit the demand and significantly change the direction the environment is headed.
Humans have been exploiting the planet for centuries. Abusing our power, getting greedy with resources and not bothering to be concerned with the state we are leaving the planet in for the people of the future or the species we are hurting now. People claim that climate change is not an issue. Our president claims climate change is not an issue we are facing, but there is evidence that shows there is. It was 45 in Wisconsin last week, that shows that it is.
There is harm happening every day around us that we choose not to notice. The world is not ours to abuse, and we are not here to cause more harm than good. We need to learn to sustain nature rather than exploit it.
