Humans Affect Environment in Many Ways

Bull City Blue
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

The fiction that humans don’t affect the environment is really quite a silly one. Everything within system affects that system. Our environment is affected not only by humans, of course, but also by cows, pigs, chickens, trees, bees, flowers, dirt; everything. As a part of an ecosystem, we influence that ecosystem.

Nonetheless, we continue to hear the sorry and factually inaccurate claim that we are not influencing climate change. Any reasonable person — who isn’t being paid by the fossil fuel industry or supporting those who are — knows we influence our climate and ecosystem. In fact, we influence it in obvious ways even if you ignore fossil fuels.

As humans, perhaps the most dramatic ways we’ve influenced our ecosystem is through mass extinction. Throughout history, many species of animals have gone extinct soon after humans have been introduced to their habitats. Obviously, removing large populations of many species would affect the ecosystem and climate of a region.

More recent examples of dramatic ways we influence our environment would include everyday things we take for granted. Roads and highways cut off and divide animals from their habitats. Dams dramatically affect landscapes, rivers and waterways.

As the Vox article dissects, what people, specifically climate change deniers, believe doesn’t matter. We need to ask what policy-makers are doing to reduce emissions, pollution, and harm to the environment. Policy affects Americans, not beliefs. We don’t need to give equal weight to both sides when we know what the truth is.

Written — 6/14/17

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