Long time ago, there was a large population of natives lived on the Easter Island. The reason why they faced their extinction is that they cut down all of the palm trees to make maois. In order to achieve their own interest, they despite the fact that palm trees take many years to grow and lead to massive deforestation. Today, we are facing the similar problem. Due to the large population, the natural resources on Earth are insufficient. It is important to know how can we deal with the environmental problems, because every decision we make can determine whether we will be the next Rapa Nui people.
Most of the Earth is covered by water, which provides fish a large, flexible area. However, over fishing are the most important resource problems that we need to deal with. Since the ocean fish has large amount and the cost is very low, fishermen use gigantic fish nets to catch these profitable natural resources. This action causes huge damage on the ecological system in the ocean. Baby fish are captured all the time. After many fishing actions, they are almost outnumber and will reduce the amount of adult fish. Less adult fish can make less baby fish. It happens continuously. Therefore, we are lack of fish now. People never think about save some fish for the next time before. They see this as a competition. Every time they try to get more fish then others. This is called the tragedy of common, which states that individuals act independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource. Finally, people realized over fishing have potential threats of lack of resources. Thus, several international agreements and norms are made.
Climate change is another serious problem right now. It is caused by the emission of greenhouse gas, especially carbon dioxide. It is very similar to the collective good problems of over fishing. If one state pollutes the air, all the countries will be suffered. However, if the state decides to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases, its unemployment rates will increase, corporate profits decrease, and personal incomes decrease. The costs are payed individually but everyone shares the benefits. Therefore some states rather choose to maintain their economy and that others to pay the costs.
I believe human won't end like Rapa Nui people. Although the natural resources are reducing, we do make a lot of efforts to help solving these problems. No matter what, we will meet our extinction one day. However, we can decide when will this day come. Different from RapaNui people, we try to help save or find substitutes resources in order to postpone the date of end of the world.
Most of the Earth is covered by water, which provides fish a large, flexible area. However, over fishing are the most important resource problems that we need to deal with. Since the ocean fish has large amount and the cost is very low, fishermen use gigantic fish nets to catch these profitable natural resources. This action causes huge damage on the ecological system in the ocean. Baby fish are captured all the time. After many fishing actions, they are almost outnumber and will reduce the amount of adult fish. Less adult fish can make less baby fish. It happens continuously. Therefore, we are lack of fish now. People never think about save some fish for the next time before. They see this as a competition. Every time they try to get more fish then others. This is called the tragedy of common, which states that individuals act independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource. Finally, people realized over fishing have potential threats of lack of resources. Thus, several international agreements and norms are made.
Climate change is another serious problem right now. It is caused by the emission of greenhouse gas, especially carbon dioxide. It is very similar to the collective good problems of over fishing. If one state pollutes the air, all the countries will be suffered. However, if the state decides to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases, its unemployment rates will increase, corporate profits decrease, and personal incomes decrease. The costs are payed individually but everyone shares the benefits. Therefore some states rather choose to maintain their economy and that others to pay the costs.
I believe human won't end like Rapa Nui people. Although the natural resources are reducing, we do make a lot of efforts to help solving these problems. No matter what, we will meet our extinction one day. However, we can decide when will this day come. Different from RapaNui people, we try to help save or find substitutes resources in order to postpone the date of end of the world.