Week 2 Questions

1) I would say the most important environmental problem can be seen with the inequalities between people in the world. What I mean by this is that there are some people that are living in such a way that we may need about 5 Earths if everyone lived like them, while there are other people that live in a way that we may only need .5 of an Earth if everyone lived like them. Unfortunately, this breakdown between people's lifestyles tends to be between the rich and the poor world. In the rich world people cannot escape the life of consumption, and while there are people and countries that try, I argue that just by living in a rich country, development tends to result in better technology and more consumption of things that hurt the world's environment. On the other hand, there are people living in poor countries that live simple lives with only the basic necessities. Or these people are forced to ruin their environment so that they might have the basic things for survival. The reason I see this as the most important problem is that while people may live their lives differently, global warming and environmental problems affect all humans and all living things.

2) To live in an environmentally friendly way one works toward improving the environment. What ones does may differ, but just striving to improve one's lifestyle is being environmentally friendly. Some examples of this include: recycling, taking shorter showers so that you do not waste water, turning lights off when you are not using them, or not buying the newest cell phone just because it exists. To be environmentally friendly one must understand what things help save the environment, and then works to implement some of those things into his or her lifestyle. I think that one can be environmentally friendly both ways-either working on it in their own life or trying to get other people to act in such a way too. However, I must say that to tell others to act a certain way, it is probably necessary that one works on those things in their own life too--nobody likes a hypocrite.