The Frog Does Not Drink Up the Pond in Which He Lives

Many scientist consider humans as the most invasive species, as human can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there. Are we being stewards if the world?

Okay so I am here to blog about human’s being stewards of the world ? After reading countless blogs on this topic I became quite overwhelmed by what my fellow class mates had to say. One would assume that I was beleaguered by the information provided , which constantly push that our world is approaching to an end in the near future. The truth is I’m beset because at the end of all my hard comprehension, I still did not understand what it means to be steward of the world. In the end I concluded that to truly understand I must learn what a steward is. According to oxford dictionary a steward is

1. A person who looks after the passenger on a ship, aircraft, or a train and brings them meals

2. An official appointed to supervise arrangements or keep order at a large public event, for example a sporting event.

3. A person employed to manage another’s property, esp. a large house or estate.

4. A person whose responsibility is to take care of something; farmers pride themselves on being the stewards of the country side.

And world meaning

1. The earth, together with all of its countries, people and natural features.

To clarify the topic, being stewards of the world technically mean a person whose responsibility is to take care of the earth, together with all of its countries, people and natural features. So the question is we as human undertaking our job? Before you compose a utmost unbiased answer to this question you must understand the truth, and to every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before you commit yourself to either.

Unit 2 target date has passed awhile ago, but yet I’m still writing my blog. Some may ask why am I still not done? Procrastination? Most likely. Nervous that Mr. Wong won’t give me a desirable mark? Possibly. But as I sit here I’ve realized some part of me is afraid. I’m afraid to deal with the issues of global warming because I don’t want to consider how my lifestyle is contributing to upsetting the delicate balance of the earth’s atmosphere. I must confess I don’t want to deal with global warming, but with all the recent natural disaster it’s just impossible to disregard. Floods, droughts, tsunamis and cyclones… one after another, many countries live in constant fear of not knowing when or where it will hit next. These natural disasters are like alarm clocks that are constantly ringing, yet no one is willing to listen or wake up. What more will it take to get humans to recognize the beckoning red signals?

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth
Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night
Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation.’ And it was so.
And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind’ and it was so.
God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image’ and it was so.
Humans said ‘Let’s take everything for granted’ and so we did

The world was created on a fragile balance, all living and non-living organisms are all by some means connected. If the correlation were to be shaped into an arithmetic equation I believe it will come across somewhat like this: ecosystem = hydrosphere +lithosphere +atmosphere. The ecosystems are simply formed on the idea of balance, but through the observations of the way humans are interacting with the ecosystem I highly doubt we are an element of the equation. We were given more than we deserve yet we will not stop from taking more, maybe it is human nature to be possessive, but that is no reason for our irresponsible behaviors and actions.
One night while watching television I came across an advertisement by the Real Food Movement it was called “Eat Real. Eat Local.” The commercial was pushing for Canadians to eat locally to help keep the money flowing within the Canadian economy, but I realized something else from this commercial. At one point it states that our food imports have increased 160% in four years while our population has only increased by only 15%. So where are these food coming from? Do we even need that much food imports? Ontario, one of Canada’s best farm lands, imported 4 billion dollars worth of produce more than they exported. Every time we purchase import goods that could be grown or bought locally we approving for foods that needs to be use unnecessary transportation. This is due prices of the imports, just because the imports are cheaper than local grown foods consumers are willing to give up the good of our earth. I’m not saying all of the consumers aren’t willing to pay more for a more eco-friendly product, but most do not believe in the sacrifice.
When we speak of human being stewards of the world it all comes down to the word sacrifice. Our unwillingness to sacrifice and to give is what led us in this position in the first place. And this will only continue until we apprehend that it doesn’t matter if we have everything in the world now, when the world ends we will have nothing at all. There is only so much the earth can offer, and we have and will continue to exceed these limits. The earth is vanishing under our selfish maintenance system. Global warming, animal extinction, polluted fresh water supply, and ozone depletion are only few of the symptoms and signs, which we choose to disregard.
Global warming has been a huge issue in the past few years, but yet some people refuse to believe in it. According to a U.N. study,” the rate of warming has doubled in the past 50 years and the temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in 20th Century were very likely higher than any other century in at least 1,300 years.” And what are we doing to help? Not enough. Though we have established a plastic bag fee, Canadians still managed created 42.6 million cubic meters of garbage in the last year. On the lines of Canadian contributions we must not forget the carbon emission. Canadian emissions increased 1.06% in 2008 over 2007. Canada's annual per capita emissions for 2008 were 5.13 tonnes, which accounted for 2.08% of the world emission. The worst part this is not all that we are doing. Humans have been barging onto untouched lands, claiming both the animal’s ecozones and lives. Thanks to humans selfish actions in the next decade 25% of all animals may face extinction.
We have to understand right now the human race is balancing on a piece cloth weaved by the fragile webs of the ecosystem. And in each individual of the human race holds a loose thread of this cloth. The more thread we pull the more thread each of us will get, but one thing that we do not understand the small piece of loose thread in our hands is enough, yet the human race still believe in getting more. We will pull until we call through this cloth, but if we do something now we can stop pulling on this, we might even be able to rebuild this piece of cloth.
Since as long as I remember humans has not been stewards of the world, it’s not that we are not able but we choose not to be. But does that mean we can’t ever be stewards of the world? No, there is hope. We are heading in a terrible direction environmentally but humans have survived because we learn and acclimatize relatively quickly. We can’t reinstate what has been lost but we can make progress on this predicament. However the prime problem we have to yet surmount is that many people believe that dilemma such as climate change has nothing to do with them. These people frequently believe that it’s the liability of government and industry, but in truth, these tribulations are linked to each individual’s daily behaviors. We can’t escape the link between the lifestyle of individuals and global warming. Every time we refuse to walk and drive to a destination, every time we leave the tap on while brushing our teeth, every time we leave our electrical appliances on standby we are contributing to global warming. Until we realize the consequences of our individual measures and grasp the fact that we cannot rely on government legislations to save us, we cannot even whisper the words that relates to being stewards of the world. We may never be able to eliminate all damage that have or will be done to the earth, but we can aim for the moon, because even if we miss we’ll land on a star. Some of the best things come out of the simplest matter and would like to end this blog with a song from one of my favorite Disney movie, Pocahontas. There are three lines in the song that made me realized something and I thought that I should share this with everyone also. I believe that all change should be established with these three lines as its central point.

You can own the Earth and still

All you'll own is Earth until

You can paint with all the colors of the wind…

Maybe we will continue to refuse to the constantly ringing alarm, maybe we will continue to choose not to make sacrifices for our future, maybe we will only discontinue taking until there is nothing to take, maybe will by no means be stewards of the world but so long as there’s a maybe, there is hope. Learn from yesterday. Live for the present. Hope for tomorrow. We have to foremost revolutionize our way of thinking before we modify our actions

Sources:
· http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/standards/08/index.html
· .http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/economics/
·http://www.nkellogg.com/balance.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsEG2SFOvM
[eat real.eat local].