Ecology And The Environment: Are We Making The Best Options For Our World?

While more people are coming to the understanding that we do, in fact, have environmental problems we are facing -- the question remains: are we solving them in the best ways?

There are a multitude of environmental campaigns thriving daily. It seems that suddenly, many people are committing to support one movement or another. Businesses specializing in ""green"" concerns are quickly being formed to help support people who want a cleaner and healthier environment. Some environmental enthusiasts hold a narrow focus and concentrate on just a few pet issues like clean air or recycling projects. There are those that will support just about any product, company, or effort that has the word "green" associated with it. There's absolutely no laying of blame for all this energy and enthusiasm but there's still the issue of effectiveness that needs more scrutiny. One must ask if all these well intentioned efforts are aimed at supporting a coordinated end result.

Ecology has fast become a commonplace word in everyday conversations of late. The word itself doesn't mean environment but instead pertains to the study of organisms within their environment and their interactions with each other and the habitat in which they live. What ecology shows us is that things are always changing, not because they really change, but because of what happens when different things interact with one another.

Our ability to thrive as a human society is dependent upon how well our planet is able to regulate and preserve the goods and services that sustain us and our well being. A balanced resolution is essential to successfully accomplish this task. An unbalanced ecosystem, consisting of living organisms and nonliving components like water, air, soil, and sunlight, ultimately affects how well our planet is able to sustain human life.

In the same way, when our solutions to environmental problems are narrowly defined, like only concentrating on recycling, then are we being effective or only treating the symptoms? There are tons of people who are absolutely convinced that recycling is a completely sound practice in and of itself. But there are others who will question that thinking by pointing out that recycling might be a good beginning but it must also be combined with efforts that take the whole picture into consideration. For example when hybrid automobiles were first making an appearance, they were praised as fuel savers, but critics quickly pointed out that the money drivers saved on fuel was actually being funneled back into the extended costs of making the cars fuel efficient. So unless we look at the end result, what we think of as ""ecological"" may not be ecological at all.

There is an expression originated with Native Americans that essentially says that when we make decisions we should make them with distant generations in mind. This same thinking seems to underlie what NXIVM and its founder, Keith Raniere, stand for, and suggests that the world's problems need to be met with a new type of thinking.

Going further with that concept we can look at single approaches like recycling and examine it in terms of how it influences the total picture. Would a change in our thinking also transform our current approach? If so, what kind of reasoning would prompt a population to do things differently? Is there a more responsible method we can take to the issue of waste that extends beyond just recycling? Undoubtedly, a deeper look at not just the symptoms in isolation but how those symptoms came to be will greatly increase our understanding and our approach to our own environmental concerns.

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