refelction

Think like a Mountain

Human beings need to think within the ecological context to solve environmental problems. Human beings should utilize intricate web found in the environment to heal its deteriorating condition. For example, in the past, chemicals were sprayed on crops to kill insects and pests. During that period, almost 30 different pesticides, calcium arsenate, nicotine, and pyrethrum were in use. The reason to use these chemicals was to minimize the impacts of famine. Pesticides and insecticides improved crop production, but after few years, it has been seen that nature started to face novel problems. Bird habitat faced the consequences of artificial means to increase crop production. Pesticides cause population decline, safe habitat loss, behavioral changes, and local extinction. The negative impact of pesticides is observed in the whole food chain. Insects, birds, animals, and human beings affected negatively，even the soil's chemical concentration was disturbed. Muller discovered the insecticidal impacts of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and received the Nobel prize to highlight the negative impacts of DDT (Shigaki,7). These problems compelled human beings to think ecologically to solve problems associated with the environment. So, scientists worked on organic ways to increase crop production. They suggested farmers use beneficial insects like praying mantis, green lacewings, and lady beetles to prey on the crop pests. Farmers used attractive habitats such as water, shelter, and food to lure good bugs into their crops. Hence, it is deduced that the ecological context should be considered while finding the solution to any environmental problem.

Humans should withdraw themselves and involve nature to overcome major environmental problems. They need to assist nature in solving environmental issues. Earth's temperature is rising day by day due to increased greenhouse gas concentration in the air. Carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a rate of 31% since the industrialization era. Fossil fuels burning and deforestation are some of the major causes of carbon dioxide increase. The involvement of nature can decrease global warming because all components of nature connect to gain balance. For example, forests act as carbon sinks. Forests continuously exchange carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. Forests capture carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere to prepare their food and release oxygen for human beings. Many studies reveal that tropical forests store almost 50% carbon dioxide and decrease global warming (Pugh, 5). Human beings need to reduce deforestation so that forests can effectively perform carbon sequestration. If they want to cut the trees, they should not cut the whole tree but cut upper logs or parts of the tree. In this way, human beings can fulfill their needs and do not intervene in carbon sequestration. Therefore, it is necessary to allow nature to show its healing power.

The holistic approach is essential to solving the deforestation problem of the world. One of the major causes of deforestation is cutting wood to meet the demand for energy consumption. Governments need to implement strict rules and regulations to prevent people from cutting wood. Strict legislation is possible to implement in urban areas, but it is difficult to convince people in rural areas to stop cutting woods. They will argue that wood is their basic necessity; it provides the heat in cold weather and energy to cook their food (Muttaqin, 2019). They have no alternatives to protect themselves from cold winds but to burn woods. So, the first government provides inhabitants of villages with an alternative. Governments are involving locals to design and implement rules that fulfill the whole community's requirements, not one particular section. It shows different sections of the community are needed to bring together to solve an issue. All stakeholders' active involvement assists the government to make effective legislation to combat the environmental issues. Governments need to consider nature and people to remove concerns about the effectiveness of the strategy. Hence, every individual's role is critical to play an effective part in the environment.

For a single individual, it is a tedious task to save Mother Nature. Environmental problems require a collective approach from society, so minor alternations in our regular lifestyle can eradicate nature's detrimental cause. Thinking like a mountain focuses on collective effort. For instance, Plastic shopping bags consumption can decrease if we take recycling bags and into the markets. Such an approach will solve many environmental problems. It will minimize air pollution due to the burning of plastic bags. It will also solve the clogging problem of the urban areas because plastic bags clog the water drains. Recycling bags will also reduce deforestation because woods are a major component to produce paper bags. Recycling bags will reduce paper bag consumption. As stated earlier, individuals cannot entirely solve a problem but have a major contribution. In contrast to the individuals, governments need to play a critical role in preventing activities that disturb the environment. The government imposes strict laws that are abided by its people. For example, countries can completely be banning the usage of plastic bags. However, the government needs the support of its authorities to implement the laws. The government of Bangladesh has recently banned plastic bag usage, and it is producing practical ramifications. Thus, collective actions from the state and people are essential to lead a healthy environment.

It is concluded that current environmental problems also require holistic strategies. The solution to environmental problems lies within the environment. Whenever human beings try to interfere in the environment's natural healing process, it exacerbates the situation. It is necessary to involve ecological context to minimize the negative impacts of climate change. Every time the world faces an environmental problem, all of us should work together to reduce the impact of environmental problems. Governments should consider all stakeholders and local people to design a strategy. Interconnected nature increases the complexity of the environmental crises, but it also provides cushy ways to diminish environmental issues' negative ramifications.

Works Cited

Mourshed, Monjur, et al. "Towards the effective plastic waste management in Bangladesh: a review." Environmental Science and Pollution Research 24.35 (2017): 27021-27046.

Muttaqin, Muhammad Zahrul, et al. "Developing community-based forest ecosystem service management to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation." Forest policy and economics 108 (2019): 101938.

Pugh, Thomas AM, et al. "Role of forest regrowth in global carbon sink dynamics." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116.10 (2019): 4382-4387.

Shigaki, Toshiro. "Health Effects of Environmental Pollutants." Gut Remediation of Environmental Pollutants. Springer, Singapore, 2020. 1-29 

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