Environmental Science Q&A
Define the main forms of pollution and resource depletion and identify the major problems associated with each form.
Main dimension of pollution include the pollution of water, air and land, diminishing their beneficial properties and constitute contamination of the environment by producing or utilizing certain kinds of goods. Main problems connected to air pollution is global warming and the destruction of protective ozone layer around Earth, increasing medical costs for people in order to maintain an acceptable level of health, and decreased quality of air overall. One more existing threat is the acid rain, provoked by burning fossil fuels which release hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere. Water pollution harms the environment, for instance, when organic wastes which remain from industrial production, get processed by some types of bacteria and deplete the water of its oxygen, making it non-suitable for fish to survive.
Land pollution is revealed primarily by exhausting the soil of its properties suitable to sustain agricultural production and provoking land infertility.
Resource depletion is a problem which reveals itself through overconsumption of finite or low-supply resources. It primarily takes the forms of depletion of existing species, depletion of minerals and depletion of fossil fuels.
Do you agree with the claims that (a) future generations have no rights, and, (2) the future generations to which we have obligations actually include only the generation that will immediately succeed us? Explain your answer, if you do not agree with these claims, state your own views, and provide arguments to support them.
Rights of future generation is a philosophical concept which implies the equal right for utilizing the planet’s environment belongs to all its generations, no matter existing or yet to be born. Arguments against sacrificing resources in favor of future generations is that we are not certain that they will exist, not sure what they will be like and not sure what will actually be in their best interest and respond to their needs. In the most absurd realization of this concept, the whole current civilization can be sacrificed in favor of some hypothetical civilization of future. To my mind, this is not a sound way of managing resources, and their responsible utilization should be based on principles of maximum relevant optimality, rather than speechmaking on the rights of immediate succeeding or far distant in time future generations.
References
Velazquez, M. (2002). Business ethics: Concepts and cases (7th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice …
