Reflection on Nature
This lecture got me thinking about how beautiful and fragile our planet is; and how as a collective society we are destroying it. Kate Fletcher’s lecture has had me thinking about the impact we and generations before us have had saying things like since 1970, the population of animals on the planet had halved.
A question at the end that was asked was “Are we past the point of no return?”. An article on the national geographic says that 30% of the planets land mass is forest. From 1990-2016, 502,000 square miles of forest have been cut down, that is an area of land larger than South Africa. (Christina Nunez, 2019, Climate 101: Deforestation, National Geographic, Viewed 21/02/2020, <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/>)
Oceans cover 71% of the planet, and contain 228,450 known spices, with an estimated 2million left undiscovered. We haven’t discovered 95% of our oceans and we are already destroying it before we get the chance. 269,000 tons of plastic is floating in our oceans right now, killing animals, habitats and coral reefs. (Alister Doyle, 2015, business insider, viewed 21/02/2020, <https://www.businessinsider.com/r-oceans-yield-1500-new-creatures-many-others-lurk-unknown-2015-3?r=US&IR=T>)
More than 95% of the world’s population is breathing polluted, unsafe air. 3.4 million deaths are caused each year due to air pollution. In 2017 it was the worlds 4th leading cause death, and a majority of the planet are starting to ‘not believe in global warming’ or refuse to worry about it because it isn’t happening near them. The problem is on the other side of the world how could it be an issue to us? But the fact is, it is happening on everybody’s doorsteps. (Plastic Pollution – facts and figures, surfers against sewage, viewed 21/20/2020 <https://www.sas.org.uk/our-work/plastic-pollution/plastic-pollution-facts-figures/>)
As a student in a performance course, a concerning factor is the constant waist of rubber gloves. Every few minutes they were in the bin and replaced with fresh ones. You can be as careful as you like, but unsustainability is everywhere and unavoidable. All we can do is our best simply being more mindful and increasing the little things we can do to help the planet and reduce air, land and water pollution.
I would end my blog post referring to the story that Kate told us about Easter Island. About how it once was covered with trees, that the estimated population of the island before it was discovered was 1500, but clouded judgement and the desperation to build these statues caused every tree to be cut down, for the ground to become unfertile, and the population had reduced to 750 unsophisticated people by the time it was discovered. So back to the question, are we truly at the point of no return? Not yet, but it is coming sooner than we all think. The story of Easter island is a great example of what is happening to the planet right now, fast fashion, consumerism, industrialisation and other economic factors are killing our planet and making it uninhabitable, and soon we will start dying out along with it.