Final Paper Prompt
Write a 1,000-1,250 word essay response that creatively describes a sustainable future where we have solved the environmental issue you wrote about for your research paper. You may focus on one city, as in the Eco-Utopia examples or write more broadly. Either way, be sure to give specific details about a) the contemporary environmental problem; b) your own vision for what moving past it could look like and c) the key factors in actually making that change happen. Remember, environmental problems are always connected to social and political ones so be sure to consider their interrelationships and consider conceptions of justice, as we have been doing throughout the semester. Philosophy homework help
Your paper should begin with an introduction that clearly states the problem and how you believe we will have moved past it. This should be followed by a well-organized and supported discussion and a conclusion. At a minimum, your paper must reference and cite the Alaimo and Orekses & Conway readings, but should also include at least two other relevant course readings. You must use in-text citations where appropriate in a consistent style (like APA or MLA), and include a list of references at the end.
Eco-Utopias
Prompt
Browse the list of cities (Links to an external site.) that constitute the Ecotopia 2121 Project (Links to an external site.), a collection of research-based stories imagining greener futures for real-world cities and their current challenges. Be sure to click on and read the narrative descriptions for at least three cities. Then write a post addressing the following questions: Which future-city do you find most compelling and why? What real-world contemporary environmental problem(s) has the city overcome? What vision does the project outline for the city’s future? How is change imagined to have happened? (ie. technology alone or something else?).
References
Alaimo, Stacy. 2012. “Sustainable This, Sustainable That: New Materialisms, Posthumanisms and Unknown Futures.” PMLA 127(3): 558-564.
Oreskes, Naomi and Erik M. Conway. 2013. “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future.” Daedalus 142(1): 40-58.
World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Environmental concerns
Introduction
For over a century, environmental issues have been a global pandemic—destructive activities leading to environmental degradation from soil water to air. The best gift to our lives is a well-conservative environment free from any disease with clean air. However, environmental issues such as pollution, global warming, water and waste disposal, acidification, and deforestation hinder the dream of a conservative environment. The main environmental issue is reckless pollution from water, air, and land. Therefore, this calls for a technological solution to solve the issue before complete and uncompensated degradation.
Recycling and treatment technology can be used to solve environmental problems enacted by pollution. Dumping non-biodegradable waste, acidification of water, and emission of untreated gas fumes have primarily contributed to pollution (Alcorn, 2020). Technology such as centrifuges can reduce the number of solids in wastewaters, reducing water pollution (Landrigan et al.,2018). Other technology entails processing, recycling, and installing meters and sensors to detect harmful emissions and dumping. Philosophy homework help
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Underlying issues might be a technological fix left unaddressed.
Pollution is mainly caused by the recklessness of industries and people’s ignorance in specific environments. For instance, a motorist driving an unroadworthy vehicle with high combustion of fuels and emissions causes air pollution and may lead to global warming at large amounts. Other issues include industries releasing untreated waste, such as dumping acidic water into water sources or directly onto land (Gill, Viswanathan& Hassan,2018). From smog over cities to smoke inside houses causes equal chances of pollution. The main underlying issue is the lack of a proper strategy to handle waste without causing environmental damage.
Embracing a technological fix to recycle and treat waste may not address all the issues. The immediate solution is to create awareness among all people about the damage they are causing to the environment through pollution (Landrigan et al.,2018). The first step to addressing corruption is individual responsibility hence technical fixing of the underlying issue.
Alternatives might be ignored in favoring tech fixes in this specific case.
Ozzie Zehner, an environmental enthusiast, focused on embracing clean energy, creates an illusion of the cost of implementing new systems free from pollution. In a study to embrace natural solar energy, he argues the concept of burning carbon dioxide from solar is equal to burning coal for the same amount of power (Khan et al.,2020). Additionally, there is the likelihood to produce more solar arrays from a greenhouse in a mission to reduce air pollution. Thus, an alternative, more minor pollutant energy source might be equal to a different ride instead of a solution.
In cases of gas treatment before emission, the process entails the use of chemicals and combustion processors (Khan et al.,2020). Using solid chemicals to treat chemicals in gas fumes to solve air pollution can be equal to direct air pollution. Thus, some technological fixes are highly recommended in this case.
Can more human control of nature solve problems caused by human attempts to control nature and an Anthropocentric worldview
man, especially in the western culture, feels entitled to global changes mainly in the section where they caused problems. Flemings has a significant impact on anthropocentric, the introduction of bacteria by human attempts in health, and later, he discovers penicillin as an antibiotic (MCKIBBEN, 2020). This is a positive indicator that human beings can fix their messes through human control.
Human beings induce pollution, and their effort is required to solve the environmental issue. Their responsibility is to own the breakdown, evaluate and develop technological fixes to handle pollution and prevent further degradation (MCKIBBEN,2020). Human beings have the control to conserve their habitat, prevent more effects of pollution and provide a strategic way to solve pollution.
Who or what might be left out if your issue is addressed by technology alone?
Vandana Shiva, an environmentalist, states that environmental pollution results from irresponsible actors, mainly in the fossil fuel industry. However, addressing the issue is not complete with technology alone; technology cannot control ignorance (Garrity-Bond,2018). Using technology to fix the problem will have the pollutants left out in the environmental conservation campaign. Thus, it is essential to educate people on ways to conserve the environment, ecological pollution hazards before fixing technology to deal with the main issue (Garrity-Bond,2018). Operators in fossil industries need to be educated, and in case of violation to conserve the environment, they should face the law. Philosophy homework help
Does the technology you identified rely on an individualized or collective sense of responsibility
Recycling waste is a personal sense of responsibility. For instance, regarding plastics at an individual level, it is their responsibility to reuse the plastics. When depositing, they need to acknowledge it is a non-biodegradable waste; thus, combusting them would ease the pollution (Gill, Viswanathan& Hassan,2018). In gas fumes, from smoking to fuel vehicles combustion, it is individuals’ responsibility to ensure the smoke is controlled and minimized in the possible way to reduce gas pollutants in the air. The most common pollution is water pollution, where individuals or companies deposit waste products and untreated sewage, conservation of water resources is also an individual urge. It is the individual responsibility to utilize technology fixes to solve environmental problems, and in the long run, pollution will be eliminated.
How might we need to consider what ‘the problem’ is in the first place?
Pollution is both a social problem and a technological one. The impact of technology on pollution is evident. Emission of harmful gases in fuel combustion, manufacture of cheap plastics, less natural resources has a detrimental effect on the ozone layer. Contrary, pollution is a social problem in that billions of people suffer from pollution, health effects, water security, and extreme global warming due to the destruction of the ozone layer.
The effects of pollution cause social problems resulting from technological advancement. Thus the issue serves as both social and technology.
Conclusion
Environmental issues are contributed mainly by reckless and ignorant people. Before initiating any technological measure to fix the problems, it is essential to create awareness of the pollution and ensure it is an individual responsibility to protect the environment. However, the technology of recycling and processing waste to harmless waste before deposition will effectively help eradicate environmental pollution.
References
Alcorn, Z. (2020). Planet of the Humans: A cocktail of valid criticisms, disinformation, and defeatism. Green Left Weekly, (1264), 18-19.
Garrity-Bond, C. (2018). Ecofeminist Epistemology in Vandana Shiva’s The Feminine Principle of Prakriti and Ivone Gebara’s Trinitarian Cosmology. Feminist Theology, 26(2), 185-194.
Gill, A. R., Viswanathan, K. K., & Hassan, S. (2018). The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and the environmental problem of the day. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 81, 1636-1642.
Khan, N. A., Khan, S. U., Ahmed, S., Farooqi, I. H., Yousefi, M., Mohammadi, A. A., & Changani, F. (2020). Recent trends in disposal and treatment technologies of emerging-pollutants-A critical review. TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 122, 115744.
Landrigan, Philip J., Richard Fuller, Nereus JR Acosta, Olusoji Adeyi, Robert Arnold, Abdoulaye Bibi Baldé, Roberto Bertollini et al. “The Lancet Commission on pollution and health.” The lancet 391, no. 10119 (2018): 462-512.
MCKIBBEN, B. (2020). A-Bomb in the Center of the Climate Movement: Michael Moore’s Damage. Rolling Stone. Philosophy homework help
