I need an explanation for this Environmental Science question to help me study.
I have to respond to 2 discussion, each respond should be a long paragraph.
this is the first discussion.
I have now found a category that I fit into. Sustainability is something that I have preached to my children since they can remember. This was also seared into my brain as a child from my parents. We have an obligation to make sure that our children’s children and their children have a place to call home, free of pollution and abundant with food and water.
Water scarcity is a real-life problem right now in today’s times. One example of many would be Californias Central Valley water shortage.
“California’s Central Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. Its high-value fruit, vegetable, and nut crops rely on surface water imports from a vast network of reservoirs and canals as well as groundwater, which has been substantially overdrafted to support irrigation. The region has undergone a shift to perennial (tree and vine) crops in recent decades, which has increased water demand amid a series of severe droughts and emerging regulations on groundwater pumping.” (Mall & Herman, 2019)
In this case, I believe that we need to find an alternate way of watering these plants. One way that I can think of would be the desalination of ocean water. There are three different methods of doing this: Thermal, Electrical, and Pressure. While all three of these methods work great for desalination, they still require energy to work. For example, Electrical desalination requires around 7 to 30 kW-h of energy per 1000 gallons of desalinated water. (Parise, 2019) While this would be great for conserving groundwater, this would be a tremendous strain on the energy sector. It would require a considerable amount of energy to do this and also use up a lot of gasoline. 1 gallon of gasoline holds about 33 kW-h which means it would take a little over 1 gallon of gas to desalinate 1,000 gallons of water. So you have to measure what is worse, the water shortage or the damage that fossil fules have on our planet. This is a perfect example of sustainable ethics. More research will need to be done in order to come up with a more sustainable way to desalinate water.
References
Mall, N., & Herman, J. (2019). Water shortage risks from perennial crop expansion in California’s Central Valley. Environmental Research Letters, 14(10), 104014. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4035
Parise, T. (2019). Water Desalination. Retrieved 14 December 2019, from http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/parise2/
this is the second discussion.
We have finally reached the point when discussing different viewpoints concerning environmental ethics that we have found a thought process that might work well. Sustainability concerns itself with living and non living things and implores humans to consider their actions when utilizing a resource. The concept is simple, be careful and mindful of what you use because the resources we have are finite. One of the major pros of this viewpoint is that sustainability is concerned with the future of the planet and all species. In order to foster a sustainable and healthy planet moving forward, it is imperative that we care for all human and non human creatures as they all hold intergral places in their respective ecosystems.
Water is the bulding block of life and without it, the human race and the planet as a whole would perish. Water is another relatively finite resource that needs to be cared for and protected. It is not possible to really limit water consumption at the individual level as it is a basic human need for survival. However, on the individual level, people can be mindful of the water that they do use and ensure not to waste what they dont need. As far as the bigger picture, we need to protect the major natural resources of fresh water. As the worlds population continues to increase, the demand for water will rise. It might be a decent solution to look into desalination as a possible way of creating more fresh water. Whatever the solution is, this is a no fail mission. If there was a water shortage, the ramifications could be catastrophic.
