Interaction is our function. Understanding Global Warming and our role as humans. Humans influencing the planet now more than ever, creating their own sphere, the anthroposphere. Proactive lifestyle will move us in the right direction, a direction toward sustainability, while giving us the hope of another life we are so fortunate to live.
The requirement for life on Earth to succeed is the function of interaction. In ecosystems ecology, all spheres are working together, interacting in there own way to sustain life on this planet. Ecosystems ecology encompasses all these spheres, each contributing in their own way for successful interactions. Botany, a discipline that involves living organisms, could in no shape be able to survive without the greenhouse effect. This effect is keeps the Earth at a warmer state. The fundamentals of chemistry can control life with a slight change in the elements of the atmosphere, which directly influence the greenhouse effect. As people witness today, our own sphere, the anthroposphere, is influencing the composition of the greenhouse effect; further exemplifying that humans have emitted an input of carbon far greater than the output. All these interactions in accordance with many more are playing a crucial role in our own ecosystem’s ecology.
In terms of geologic time scales, our existence is miniscule. Yet, we see a change in the mean global temperature, which directly correlates to our global impact, which is unlike any living thing ever known. Earth systems science aids our exploration through the individual systems of our planet by studying how they interact holistically. With that, questioning how these components will change through space and time. As a scientist in the Earth and Environmental Science (EES) field, these questions can pertain to everyday life. As a climatologist, questioning how temperature change will influence the ice melting and further sea level rise that will ultimately lead to an increase in both. Perhaps as a remediation analyst for Hurricane Katrina, this sea-level rise was a main influence in the damage caused on “The City below sea level”. All components play a part; our job as scientists in the EES field of study the components of the Earth system, answer how they will influence other aspects of the Earth, to predict, study, and analyze our planet.
As previously spoken, the anthroposphere is playing an ever-increasing role. We have been named “top of the food chain”. With this in mind we keep aware that within the past one hundred years, our population has raised greatly. Over-population has aided the carbon input and this is where the human, anthropogenic effects become too great. Overpopulation has placed an unprecedented force that is significantly compromising the Earth’s fixed resources. Practically all activities in life today require fuel and land use. In culmination with overpopulation, these three environmental issues are the most pressing problems our world faces. Undeniably there are other issues which play a part in the way our planet is responding to land use and overpopulation. Climate change and biodiversity are changing the way we have viewed Earth for all of our existence but it is the three issues stated prior that have ultimately lead to the loss of biodiversity and global warming.
Being a part of the anthroposphere, which is so greatly disrupting the planet, our obligation must be to compensate for our mismanagement all these years. Taking a proactive role may not provide an immediate result in the Earth’s system but rather will motivate others to be more aware of the consequences we, and the other interacting spheres will encounter if our present “mass-consumption” pattern does not change. Working with the Environmental Initiative at Lehigh gives the university an opportunity to see what direction we can move. As the Campus Sustainability Intern, making others aware of our Greenhouse Gas Inventory will spark questions and goals on how to make the campus meet the needs of future generations. We all have the opportunity, large or small, to make a contribution to the future because right now, we only have one world.
