Brown addresses a variety of environmental problems in this book. Focus on one environmental problem that the author discusses between p. 55 and p. 92. Summarize what the problem is and what Brown says about its impact. Don’t forget to use a citation. Then explain how YOUR country is potentially impacted by this problem and what, if anything, people should do (give your opinion!) to address this problem. Explain how you see this problem being part of YOUR personal/professional future in your country. It is possible that the author mentions your country --- and you can certainly paraphrase and cite his ideas --- but you need to address what you think people in your country should do about it. If the author does not mention your specific country, you can write an answer based on what you know of the problem in your country, again being careful to express opinions about what people in your country should do about the problem.
Keep your answer to 250 well paraphrased/cited words. Write a response of about 100 words to someone else’s reply.
35 comments:
Along with the issue of global warming, water and food shortage are severe problems dealing to the increasing population. The world trend now is increasing demand for food, but with restricting supply (Brown, 2011, p. 63). This leads to rising food price and people are starving in most of the countries.
There are several reasons that expansion of production is impossible nowadays; for example, land is mostly for non-farm use. Increasing population and fewer profits came from agricultural products turn lands into residential and recreational use. Countries think of some solutions to cope with this issue. Importers sign agreement with exporting countries which produce grain product to ensure they got enough imported food. Besides, land acquisitions are popular. Buying or leasing land in other countries in order to produce more crops and satisfy food demand. However, impacts of these solutions including food security, production uncertainty and public outcry bring into people’s concern (Brown, 2011, p. 67). Transporting food from countries to countries is unsecure and costly. Apart from this, planting crops could be a long-term investment which has lots of uncertainty such as timing and harvest quality. Also, there might not be any benefits to local people. They lost land for own use with only a few job available. So, they disagree with this idea very much.
Insufficient land and high population is the main problem in Hong Kong. Tall buildings are mainly for commercial and residential use, and Hong Kong has less and less land for agriculture. So, it depends on importing food from several countries. Sometimes, supply can’t afford the increasing food demand. In my opinion, Hong Kong government should set up policy for controlling the growth of population in order to settle the problem of food and water shortage. Land acquisition could be a good idea, but it should be happened in some nearby cities such as Shenzhen in the mainland China to minimize transportation cost. Besides, scientists may do research on helping the expansion of grain production. This should not be harmful to human health. They can focus on improving the technology and building rooms with good temperature and environment for crops. Educating people about the consequence of food shortage can be a good way to start too. People are encouraged to treasure food and water, so they will take action to reduce food wasting in order to protect the environment and the next generation.
My home country is Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a very small place and an international financial center. There is around 7 million people living there. Tall buildings are all around Hong Kong. It is absolutely true that Hong Kong is a “concrete jungle”. So, there is no place for Hong Kong to farm. All the food supply in Hong Kong is depending on import.
Food scarcity is a serious environmental issue. “The trends generating food demand and restricting supply are converging to create a perfect storm in the world food economy” (Brown, 2011, p63). Brown states clearly that the demand for food increase while the supply of food doesn’t. So the price of food increases and food scarcity occurs.
Because of the rapid population growth and the limitation of food supply. There is problem of hunger all around the world. Foreign governments will have plans to protect their residents and economy, and will restrict the export of food. Therefore, Hong Kong is actually facing a serious problem about food scarcity.
People in Hong Kong can only do very little or even nothing to solve this problem because Hong Kong has very limit area. People can’t farm themselves. Thus, government has responsibility to maintain stable food supply. There are two recommendations that government can do. First, government can find the competitive advantage in Hong Kong. Finding out the unique resources and trade the resources for food. Second, Hong Kong is part of China. Hong Kong government can discuss the problem with Chinese government in order to provide stable food supply to Hong Kong.
Food is the basic element for us to be alive. Government should address the problem as soon as possible. Otherwise, the impact will be serious. All the Hong Kong residents will be suffering from starved.
Food Scarcity becomes a hot topic today. I cannot believe that food riots are still happened in 21st century, but this is true. “As more and more people were trapped between low income and rising food prices, ford riots become commonplace” (Brown, 2011, p.59). With the high growing demand of food, some countries are facing with the food scarcity problem like Cameroon; “dozens of people died in food riots and hundreds were arrested”(Brown, 2011, p.60)
I come from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of two special administrative regions of China. Hong Kong just a small dot on a map, but it have more than seven million people are living there. Hong Kong is one of the highest population density areas in the world. However, Hong Kong cannot produce the enough grain for Hong Kong people, so almost every kind of grains are imported from China or other countries. If Hong Kong does not imported food from other countries, I believe food riots will also happen in Hong Kong. Fortunately, Hong Kong does not face to the food scarcity problems but Hong Kong people are always making food wastes. Some Hong Kong people have a meal in restaurant; they will not take the leftovers home. The main reason of food wastes produce is all about culture. In tradition Chinese culture, people will feel embarrassed if they take the leftovers home.
I think this is unfair. Hong Kong imports a lot of food and also excesses a lot. In some countries, they don’t even have enough food for everyone. Not only Hong Kong people, I hope everyone can at least take and eat their leftovers that they cannot finish in a meal.
One of the problems that I picked up from the book World on the Edge is tropical storm system affecting. Brown mentions that “a higher surface water temperature caused by evaluated global temperatures, which can lead to more-destructive storms.” (2011, p.76). The cause is the rising global temperature caused by the elimination of large amount of carbon dioxide (Brown, 2011, p.55). I was originally born and grown up in Japan. Every year especially in the July and August Japan usually suffers from typhoons. As Brown talked about in the book, “in 2004, Japan experienced a record 10 typhoons that collectively caused $10 billion worth of losses.”(2011, p.76).
In my opinion, Japan’s location is also one of the reasons. However, in order to minimize potential damage, I believe reduction of the amount of carbon dioxide is essential. Perhaps, some inland countries might not show their interest in reducing it. However, every single country shares only one atmosphere and the increase in CO2 level also influence the fate of our future such as melting ice and food security etc. In this sense, we all have to work on together. In Japan we have a tax program called eco-car tax break program that allow you to get some discount on car tax and also discount on your car if you but a new that emits less CO2 or has low-fuel consumption. We also have similar system for home electronics appliances that consume less energy level.
Reference
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the Edge. New York: W.W. Norton.
In response to Wong’s comment, I strongly agree with you that we all should at lease try not to leave leftovers on our plate. I am also from small island Japan and our food self-sufficiency ratio is less than 50%. However, we wasted so much leftovers as garbage. We should stop thinking of leftovers as the dregs and use those food scraps something else. For example, we can use them to feed barn animals and we can also use them as fertilizers. Moreover, we can also use it as biomass.
Food product deplete every year because of global warming, expanding desert, rising sea level, destructive storm, and water shortage. This food scarce causes wheat rice, corn, and soybean prices tripled compare to historical level(Brown, 2011, p. 60). Many people in poor countries like Ethiopia, Haiti, Philippines, and Senegal couldn’t afford to buy or grow any food. They usually hunger to death or turn into food riots. (Brown, 2011, p.60) The violent arose between food protectors and food riots. Many of them were injured or killed because food. Furthermore, growing demand for food is another big issue for food scarce. One of the examples is population growth. Because world population grows every years there are more food required to feed new born. To fulfill the food scarce and growing food demands, many leading countries buy the land from other poor countries to replace the deplete rice, soybean and wheat. The land is usually taken over from developing or poor countries (Brown, 2011, p.64). Most of times, developing countries are targeted by many investors because the values of the land are cheap (Brown, 2011, p.65). China and South Korea monoculture food in poor countries and transported products back to their countries. This massive water uses in agriculture cause water shortage in the poor countries. Leading countries taken their lands, crops and water that is used for grows crops.
In order to stop vicious circle of food competition, South Korea should limit the population growth and impose number of children in each family. This will decrease food demand and water use. Furthermore, South Korean should preserve any agricultural land that also helps to reduce water storage. Governments also supports the re-constructing companies to build higher apartments. If many people lived in high apartments, there should be less landscape is required for new building and there will be less agriculture land will be destroyed.
reference
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
I strongly agree to Kaman Poon’s comment that people should be educated about the water shortage and food scarce so that people know the critical situation. People will take action to make thing better. Furthermore, like Hong agriculture land is decreasing, Korea agriculture land is also decreasing because massive lands are used to create golf field, constructing road, and building. I believe many people in Korea do not know about the food scarce and not know about Korea imports 70 percent of rice from other countries. If they aware of food scarce and water shortage, people will start to save water and care the natural.
In response to Ki Wong’s comment, I agree the idea of taking and eating leftover. Along with my suggestion of educating people the consequence about food shortage, taking leftover home or eating leftover can be a good example to follow. Besides, I want to add some opinions about this mixed idea. Some kind of food can be kept for longer period, but some don’t. People should be aware of the expiration dates of food or drink. This can help reducing food waste. Also, a good and energy-efficient refrigerator is useful to store cooked and uncooked food; therefore, we could store and eat leftover without causing any health problems. This kind of refrigerator can save energy too.
In response to Karman Poon’s comment, I like her ideas of treating the food scarcity problems. People in Hong Kong waste a lot of food every day. Educating them about the food scarcity problem and impacts is a good method. Besides, I have a new idea to decrease the demand for food. Government can regulate restaurants, which offer buffet lunch or dinner. I am not saying that people waste a lot of food, is that people are not necessary to eat that much. It is a kind of extravagant; therefore, regulating the buffet lunch and dinner reduces the food demand.
In response to Hama’s comment, I am totally agree with you said that reduce the carbon dioxide emissions. I am interesting about “eco-car tax break program” that you mentioned on you comment. Can you tell me more about it? How much can you save for a car? However, it is too difficult to ask every country to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. For a developing country, they will not agree to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions as they cannot slow down of developing. In my mind, if every government is willing to do the tax discount on the car that emits less carbon dioxide or has low-fuel consumption, it will help a part of reduction on carbon dioxide.
I chose one environmental problem, “food scarcity” from the textbook. I am from South Korea, and South Korea has this problem as many other countries have. According to Brown (2011), “between early 2007 and 2008, world wheat, rice, corn, and soybean prices climbed to roughly triple their historical levels” (p. 59). Recently, in South Korea, food price, especially a grain, keeps growing because population of farmers is decreasing, and South Korea has lack of land for agricultures. In addition, as you know that South Korea is divided into two countries, South Korea and North Korea. South Korea is a very small country and its area is similar like one state of the United States. That’s why food price in South Korea is very expensive, and has “food scarcity”. Brown (2011) also states, “South Korea, a leading importer of corn and wheat, is a major land investor in several countries (p. 65). Moreover, profit from selling grains is not much bigger than other industries. Therefore, South Korea buys over 70 percent of grains from other countries nowadays. People in the world prefer to buy cheap foods, and also the same applies to Korean people. Therefore, South Korean government should keep buying or borrowing lands from other countries to farm, and import those foods in order to solve “food scarcity” problem. Also, Korean people should keep buying foods from our own country’s company’s foods because if we buy low-priced foods from other countries’ company’s foods, we could not expand lands for farming and solve this problem.
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
In response to Wong’s comment, I strongly agree with Wong’s opinion that “Foreign governments will have plans to protect their residents and economy”. Hong Kong needs to have more spaces for farming. Also, my country, South Korea, has “food scarcity” problem. Also, I really like Wong’s opinion for solving the problem, “Finding out the unique resources and trade the resources for food”. I have an another solution for solving “food scarcity” that Hong Kong government should buy or borrowing lands for faming from other countries, and then sell back to Hong Kong in order to provide stable food supply like South Korea. It is mentioned on page 64 to 69 on the textbook.
Food scarcity has been one of the world concerns nowadays. The three sources of increasing demand for food are population growth; rising affluence and associated jump in meal, milk, and egg consumption; and the use of grain to produce fuel for car (Brown, 2011, P.60). However, the majority of population growth are being added in the poor countries where soil are eroding, irrigation wells are going dry, and cropland is scarce (Brown, 2011, P. 60).
I am from Hong Kong, which is a very small city contain more than 7 million people, it is impossible to have enough cropland to be self-sufficient in this small city. Therefore, Hong Kong mostly relies on the surrounding countries and China is one of the main suppliers. However, China faced with aquifer depletion and the heavy loss of cropland to nonfarm uses; it will soon be totally dependent on imports or overseas projects for its grain (Brown, 2011, P. 64). Losing China as the main supplier to satisfy Hong Kong food demand, the food prices will increasing rapidly, and may face food insecurity.
China has been enforcing the one child policy for years. However, in some part of china where is very poor and people are not educated enough are still suffering in food shortage. Chinese government should educate birth control to its citizens more to control population growth effectively.
As population in china grows rapidly, demand for food rise, food supplies remain or even decline due to aquifer depletion etc, prices of food rises. If people’s income in Hong Kong is rising inconsistently with the food prices; eventually, more people will be suffering in hunger, people will end up withdraw their investment, and stock market will collapse.
In response to Wong’s comment, I strongly agree with you that all food in Hong Kong is depending on import. From other countries’ prospective, it is understandable that they need to make sure their citizens are not starving before exporting their excess food to other countries. In this recent year, the prices of food in Hong Kong are rising rapidly, and some people start complaining and suffering under this issue. It is a wakeup call to Hong Kong government, and it needs to take action handling food prices. Government can sign long term bilateral trade agreements to other importing countries such as China to ensure people are not suffering in hunger.
In respond to Ho Won Song's comment, I believe it would be difficult to decrease the demand of water and food consumption in South Korea by limiting the population growth rate by imposing children in each household. Becuase it will lead to more issues, such as people protesting, people keep hiding kids secretly and it will also cause alot of problems. Instead, it would be better if we can construct tall buildings so that we can have more lands to increase the amount of crops to feed people.
The author Lester Brown discusses many environmental problems in his book World on the edge. I want to discuss one of the problems that address in my country China is food scarcity. The world trend now is increasing prices and demand for food, but the supply for food is reduced. There are many factors to create the storm of world food economy, but Brown summarizes three main sources of increasing demand for world food: the population growth, high quality using of grain to produce fuel for cars and high consumption in milk, meat and egg (Brown, 2011, p.60).
China is a rapid population growth and big food production country. Now, China is losing heavily in cropland to “nonfarm” use (Brown, 2011, p.64). The main reasons are population growth and more and more buy cars in China. More land is used for traffic system and residential district. Brown (2011) says that the ownership rate of cars in China is “ three cars for every four people” (p. 62).
As I live in China since I born, I witness this big change. Ten years ago, the main transport of people using is motorcycles, because it is faster than bicycles and the price is much cheaper than cars. After ten year, dealing with cars prices is cheaper than ten years ago, and many people’s economic level is much higher than before. As a result, more and more people using cars instead of motorcycles. In the peak of traffic in my hometown, there will cost people half hour to drive cars in a ten minutes distance. The main reason to create traffic congestion in China is the ownership rate of cars is too high. Food scarcity is result of cropland losing. To solve this problem, I think the government really needs to control the quality of cars selling. The government needs consummate the policy that to control people buy more cars. Moreover, to consummate the city’s traffic system is also a good way to solve this problem. If there are cheaper price of tickets, more lines and faster speed of public transport, I believe that people will choose public transport instead of cars. The less cars people have, the less land will be used to build for traffic. Furthermore, if the quality of cars in the country reduced, there will be less grain to produce fuel for cars and more people will get grain to eat. The food scarcity problem will be controlled.
“China’s Ministry of Health statistics show that cancer is now the country’s leading cause of death…With little pollution control, whole communities near chemical factories are suffering from unprecedented rates of cancer (Brown, 2011, p81).” Hong Kong is the city that I born and raised in, it is a special administration region of China. Under a different political system from China’s, Hong Kong becomes one of the world’s leading international cities with its economic freedom and service economy freedom. Therefore, during the past centuries, Hong Kong’s population has raised prodigiously. With such a fast growing economy and population, the lack of space caused demand for denser constructions with buildings and transportation network, causing more and more pollution problems encroach to the city. The fast growing economy causing the need of factories increases also, but due to not only the lack of space but the high cost of land, people shift their factories’ location to China, with low cost and various places.
As Brown mentioned in the book, more and more people in China are now having cancer problems due to the health-damaging pollutions (Brown, 2011, p81). From my point of view, Hong Kong is also one of the murderers from bringing this to the society because of its fast growing economy. Considering China now having more cancer problems, including Hong Kong, reasons are all about air pollutions. Not to mention rather the government should shut down some factories, but being able to improve this situation, I think the government should carefully and strictly observe how those factories run in the normal days and the air pollution they release. Furthermore, there are more different ways to improve the health damaging pollution problems. For instance, they can try to limit the air pollution in one area or city, convince some companies to go green with their factories, to make green by planting trees, building parks, etc., and concern more in nature conservation to be able to neutralize and stick up to the air pollutions. Both governments in China and Hong Kong should concern more in educating people about the importance of go green and to conservation their nature and environment, which I believe can at least save thousands of people’s lives from the health damaging pollution problems.
References:
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
In response to Lau’s comment, I agree with you that the food scarcity in China is because of the population growth. I think that both the rapid population growth and the cropland losing caused the food scarcity in China. The demand of food is increasing, but the food supply reduced because of losing cropland to nonfarm use. You give a suggestion to Chinese government that to educate birth control to citizens and control population growth effectively. I think the government also need educate people save the food. I find many people waste food at home, in the school’s dining hall or in the restaurant. People should realize that many poor people in China do not have enough food to eat; they should not waste food they have.
In response to Ki Wong’s analysis, I strongly agree on how Hong Kong people are wasting not only food but also water during food scarcity happening to many other countries. Due to the lack of space and environment, Hong Kong basically needs to import everything from other countries or China, the use of food and water can always be over calculated, sometimes with too much import of water, they even dump it to the sea. It is unforgivable when there are billions of people from other countries suffering for food and water. I understand how important it is to maintain people’s demands in a modern city, but instead of throwing away all those natural resources, I believe the government should try their best to adjust the size of importing demand or they can transport it back to China, where many of the Chinese are also suffering for water and food. It is a total sin to waste food and water in this way, no matter how rich you are or how important your country’s position is.
Tsunami hit the northern cities of Japan on March 11, 2011. It was the biggest environmental disaster they ever had. Because of this tragedy, about 24,000 people were missing or dead, and about 10,000 people are refugees (“Japan — Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis,” 2011, p.1) According to Brown (2011), after a dire disaster, people who lost their home need to build their houses again. However, about 70 percent of people returned to their home, but 30 percent of people did not (Brown, 2011, p.72). This 30 percent of people is what environmental refugees are. Therefore, “people displaced by rising seas, more-destructive storms, expanding deserts, water shortages, and dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants in the local environment.” (Brown, 2011, pp.72-73) In other words, more the indiscreet environmental developments have more environmental refugees emerge. These days, in Korea, the government tries hard to go back ‘Green’. Korea president, Myung-Bak, Lee, announced ‘Green project’ recently. One of the Green projects is ‘Grand Korean Waterway’ which connects Korean main waterways. Korean government expects that it can contribute to economic growth. However, I think building Grand Waterway makes another environmental refuge by doing unrealistic development. The major drinking water sources can be ruin, flooding have possibility to occur in some areas, and habitats of endangered species can be disrupted. As a result, Grand Waterway make Korean be environmental refugees. What Korean could do is that find another plan to develop our economic growth rather than against to the government unconditionally. Additionally, Korean government also need to research about negative effect such as ruin environment rather than the positive effect.
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Carrington, Damian. (June 27, 2011).
Japan — Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis. (June 20,2011). The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2011, from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html
In response Lau’s comment, I agree with his opinion that Chinese government should control their population. These days, as the number of population grows rapidly, people suffer from the lack of food supplies. China has the largest number of population in all over the world, and that is why they suffer from severe food shortage. I think that educating people not to give a birth a lot is good idea. This is because people who are poor are not really educated enough and they do not know why they should not give a birth more than one baby. Therefore, I suggest Chinese government should educate people especially poor same as Lau’s opinion.
Saleh's post pt. 1
One of the things that has been really interesting about our required reading is how often my country (Saudi Arabia) is mentioned and used as an example of how current behavioral trends are likely to result in future conflict and ecosystem failure. In the first block of reading, Brown (2011) discusses how my country made an attempt to become food self-sufficient, which resulted in over-pumping water from its fossil aquifer (p.22). This unsustainable practice has resulted in my country no longer being able to farm grains. In our current block of reading, Brown (2011) again uses my country’s efforts to solve its food problems brought about by lack our lack of irrigation water, as creating a potential crisis that could result in conflict between other nations (p.66-68). Our country’s solution has been to lease land in other, poorer nations, such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Indonesia, and the Philippines (Brown, 2011, p.66). Besides the damage done to these countries’ local ecosystems as land is cleared for agriculture, water use increases, the introduction of nonnative plant species often occurs, and higher levels of fertilizers and CO2 pours into their local watersheds and atmosphere, there is another, more sinister problem. These countries’ are poor, in which their local populations are already suffering from hunger, in which they easily become the victim of food shortages or escalating food prices that result from an increased demand and natural disasters that affect harvests. My country assumes that their ability to produce food in countries around the world is a sure thing and will be the solution needed to secure food independence, or protect our people from sharp increases in the cost to import food brought on by more natural disasters and demand. What they forget to acknowledge is that this solution requires that that the people in these countries still value money over food. If food becomes more valuable that money, then the likelihood of land leases being honored seems very unlikely. In addition, I can’t see starving and desperate people living side-by-side with foreign agricultural farms, without their being conflict and these crops being seized.
Personally, I don’t think my country’s plan to grow crops in other countries is a viable solution. In fact, it will probably mean that my country will have to hire lots of security or it will have to increase its own military security and be more likely to intervene in other countries, in order to protect its assets. This seems like it would be much more expensive than some other solutions. I think that the people in my country should recognize their water shortage problems and consider a cheaper, more self-sustainable solution. I have read a lot about hydroponics and vertical farms, which are tall, relatively self-sufficient structures that can produce a variety of plants and fish without having to rely on lots of water and nonrenewable energy sources to operate. In fact, some of the models that I have seen use municipal sewage that is processed to extract pure water that is then used for irrigation. Since we have a very arid climate, we could use solar technology and recycled water from municipal waste to supply energy and water to power large and enclosed vertical farms, which would help to reduce loss of water being evaporated. In addition, hydroponic agriculture could help yield a lot of crops within a small area, which means that these could be located near populations in demand. I could go on and on, because I am very passionate about this, but I think this is what my people need to support, instead of relying on foreign countries’ land.
Reference
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Sorry, the second post was meant to be titled pt.2.
In response to what xiaoxiao chen said, I have several questions that I would like to know, because I am not as familiar with China's public transportation system. First, I was wondering if you have ridden on some of the transportation systems in the large cities and are they cost and time effective? What forms of public transportation do they have? I really thought your post was interesting and wanted to learn a little bit more about the challenges of public transportation in large cities. I also was wondering if you are aware of any discussion in your country to process sea water into irrigation water, which something that my country does? I look forward to your response.
In response to Suyeong Chung comment, I thought it was interesting that Brown (2011) mentions similarities between our countries (South Korea and Saudi Arabia). With that being said, I notice that we have a difference of opinion. While you mention that South Korea should continue to lease land in other countries, I argue that my own country should stop this practice and explore solutions that are eco-friendly and independent of others. For example, what happens if using water to grow crops on leased land starts to affect that country's ability to grow their own crops? I would think that when things come down to desperation, a country will look after its own interests before anther's interest, regardless of a contract. Also, as these countries are very poor, what happens if their populations become so desperate for food that they raid these farms? I think that there are better solutions that may take more investment and innovative thinking. Great post!
Brown discussed how rising-sea refugees were harmed from such an irresistible natural disaster and what consequences were produced from the countries. He mentioned, “Even a 3-foot rise would inundate parts of many low lying cities, major river deltas, and low-lying island countries” (Brown, 2001, p.73). The rising tide brings a lot of bad impacts on people and their country politically and economically. When people face this disaster, there should be a fluctuation in prices of regions, losing lands, increasing of heavily populated areas, contaminating drinking water, or damaging crops. Such a lot of problems will greatly affect on the country and also a living condition of people. President Flores of Honduras said, “Overall, what was destroyed over several days took us 50 years to build” (Brown, 2001, p.76). This phrase deeply touches my heart. It is so miserable for me to think of people who are suffering from unexpected calamity. We really need to take steps to prevent rising-sea problems which are the one of serious environmental issues. Brown also said the rising-sea should be a more fatal blow to land with ice sheet since it could just be melted and usually have the highest sea level. Since South Korea is a comparatively small nation, we have not experienced such a world-renowned disaster yet. However, our country is surrounded by water on three sides, and many cases from damages of rising tide are always going on. A lot of crops are failing and we are losing our land gradually. South Korea is putting a lot of efforts by building breakwaters, but there are so many places with huge differences between ebb and flow. As far as I know, ebb and flow of the tide are due to the gravitation of the moon, so I dare to cherish a hope our country to invent/do something which could adjust the gravitation of the moon scientifically because as like this, I feel like our country can be disappeared in the future. This can become a reality in a very short time since South Korea is so small country. I think most people and we do not really think that we never meet such a huge calamity. We do need to care not only us and but also our descendants. Brown also mentioned, “In any event, rising sea level is likely to shrink U.N membership as low-lying island states disappear” (Brown, 2001, P74), and said this can result great migrating to other countries. We must be aware of environments in our country not to be shrunk under the sea permanently.
Reference
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
In reponse to Suyeong Chung’s comment, a decrease in farmer population can be considered as truly serious problem in South Korea. Most people do not want to live in countryside, and even though people who brought up in the countryside left their home after they were grown up. Since we are already experiencing a fast-shrinking population in our country, we could lose all farmers. How can we maintain our living if we don’t have farmers who provide foods for us? Korean land is very fertile and we have very good condition to produce our foods. Therefore, as Suyeoung said, besides not to buying foods from other countries, I think we also need to get rid of prejudice against countryside and change our thoughts for the future of our country.
One of the environmental problems Brown addresses was soaring food prices, though this problem has shown up countless of times throughout history, the very recent one that took place in 2007-08 was said to be different as it was not event-driven like all the previous ones (Brown, 2011). The reason for the food prices surge was because the rising demand. “Today there are three sources of growing demand for food: population growth; rising affluence and the associated jump in meat, milk, and egg consumption; and the use of grain to produce fuel for cars” (Brown, 2011, p.60). The food demand increase due to population growth being the most apparent as the numbers argue for itself; adding about 80 million people each year (Brown, 2011). In addition to the increased demand caused by population growth, rising affluence makes its contribution as more and more consumers can now afford the more expensive “grain-intensive livestock products” (Brown, 2011), and thus pushes up the annual grain consumption per person. Since the gasoline price of U.S. have been constantly shooting upwards, “United States attempted to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into ethanol” (Brown, 2011, p. 61).
My country, Taiwan, is affected by this environmental problem as soaring food prices eats up the consumption power of the Taiwanese. Since the high demand is built up by the world, an even higher demand for food is anticipated. With this anticipation, it should be easy to reach the conclusion that the potential problem of soaring food prices in Taiwan is inevitably large. For this worldwide problem to be solved is undoubtedly challenging and might be fixed somewhat if the prices of food keep increasing to the point where nobody is willing to spend as much for those higher-end “grain-intensive products,” and therefore decrease the quantity demanded.
References:
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge: how to prevent environmental and economic collapse. New York, NY, USA: W W Norton & Co Inc.
In response to Mina Ha’s comment, rising-sea is really a fatal issue as it affects our drinking water, damage crops, and forces people out of their homes. I strongly agree the fact that it takes 50 years to rebuild is heart-touching because it is just not going to be easy to all who have to lose their homes. To me, the saddest thing among all is the uncertainty of when and where natural disasters will take place; with many natural disasters related to the warming of sea temperature and all the disorders of the ecosystem that are caused by human beings.
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