Humans and Sustainability

by akjscho (student)

For me sustainability goes to the origin of the word, which is to sustain. In this context, sustainability means to be able to sustain human life. For that is the primary concern for humans. While it is important for us to bear in mind the sustainability of other life forms, when broken down those concerns go back to the concern for the survivability of the human race. To sustain the human race is very complicated procedure because of the multitude of variables that go into it. Humans obviously need food, water, and shelter. To provide food, there needs to be ways of distribution and production. Food also needs to be nutritious enough so

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that humans can perform necessary tasks and to remain healthy. Water is necessary for most biological tasks and is also used for many other tasks required in food production, mainly the growing of certain foods. Shelter is key because human’s survivability rate without protection from the elements is low compared to that of the humans who did have shelters. However, humans require more than these bare necessities to survive as a productive, for there is more to life than gaining the bare necessities. Humans are political creatures, in that they naturally tend to form social groups. Social groups increase the sustainability of the human race. They provide emotional and physical support, increase in food production, and easier access to shelter. However, the downfall of social groups is the increase in population growth. With social groupings, population growth increases without bound, we have yet to find a social grouping that has a population growth of zero. However, we live in a finite world, of finite space and of finite resources. To sustain a race that is constantly growing, we need more space and more resources. However, when resources are used innapropriately and without concern, the sustainability of the human race drastically falls. Because humans tend to think individually rather than as a group, they only measure decisions based on what is best for them. This causes a lack of concern for the environment, where resources are found. This has led to immense pollution and even extinction of some animal species. Pollution ruins and destroys vital resources to the human race and will lead to problems of sustainability because of this destruction. To fix this however is a challenge because we have no way, at the current time, to increase our finite space, and there is no ethical way to control the human population growth. Because there is no solution now does not mean the problem should be ignored. Cancer research is not unimportant because of a lack of solution, and the problem of sustainability is arguably more important the curing of cancer, for sustainability is literally global. More concern and attention should be put into this problem to find a solution, even if it is not technical. For a solution to be found there needs to be a mass group of humans working on it, but how to convince people of this necessary act. For now, there is no way to convince people outright. For the moment, we are stuck with showing people the harmful effects of pollution and overpopulation, hoping they will come to the conclusion that something needs to be done.