Synthesis to Richard Kahn’s Toward Ecopedagogy

Alexandre Penegre

Dr. Taylor

English 101-68

February 6, 2012

Synthesis to Richard Kahn’s Toward Ecopedagogy

            Richard Khan explains the peril that the planet is going to face a few decades if humans do not doing anything to prevent it and continue in what we are doing. Khan points out that the expansion in production, the lack of education, and the growth between the poor and the rich are some of the causes of the possibility of a sixth mass extinction that this planet faces.

            Production has almost doubled in thirty years. The population is booming, and that will inevitably be unavoidable. However, because of the amount of production to sustain this population is immense, this planet will be sucked dry of its once bountiful resources and be destroyed. Production through the use of nonrenewable resources “has led to a corresponding increase in the carbon emissions known to be responsible for global warming.” Coal, oil, natural gas is all creating emissions called greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases are destroying the ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun’s harmful UV rays and are also one of the reasons this planet can provide life.

            Global warming is more than just getting burnt more in summer while at the beach or that it snows less during winter, it is the cause of the polar ice caps melting. When the polar ice caps melt, it kills of animals such as the polar bear as well as increase the quantity of water in the ocean. As the ocean level rises, beaches and land are becoming submerged. However, since humans like to build close to the water for the scenery or just the love to be by the beach, sand must be imported to prevent the buildings from also becoming submerged. Exporting sand will destroy the land that the sand comes from, whether it is from another beach or farther inland. Humans are just trampling over the ecology and twisting it the way they want it.

            The consumption of food is another issue, since billions of livestock and fish are being slaughtered on a yearly basis to sustain human life. Environmentalists predict that “nothing less than 103 million pigs, 38 million cows and calves, 250 million turkeys, and 8 billion chickens are slaughtered annually in America alone.” Not only that, but commercial fishing is expected to be nonexistent by 2048. Fishing in the last thirty years has caused ninety percent of major fish species to disappear. How can humans continue to exist if fish, a staple food item and hundreds of regions, disappear to the point where fishing is no longer an option to survive?

            The treatment of land is another major issue that Earth faces. “As with forests and oceans, since the end of the 1960’s, half of the planet’s wetlands have either been filled or drained for development, and nearly half of the Earth’s soils have been agriculturally degraded so as not to support life.” With an increase in technology, agriculture is producing billions of pounds of food. This production uses up the nutrients in the land as well as created poisonous runoff from fertilizers that kills off more species at runs throughout rivers and oceans.

            Education is much needed in today’s society. It is major factor in informing people of the peril that this planet is in. Without education, people will continue on with their lives, oblivious to what is going on in the world that they are living in. Educating what is happening to our planet is the first step in rescuing it from its demise. How can people help if they do not even know that there is a problem?