The Human Impact on the Environment

I read an interesting article the other day about floating garbage patches out in the Pacific Ocean. These floating patches are made up of bits of trash that were caught in the ocean's currents and eventually made it to spots where the opposing currents began to 'cancel' each other out so what essentially ended up happening is that you have patches of growing trash floating in the middle of the ocean and it's beginning to have an impact on the life at sea. In fact some scientists have estimated that given the size of known patches of garbage in the Pacific the total area covered in trash (combining the various patches) could be close to the size of Texas. Now naysayers may dismiss this as being an exaggeration but what cannot be denied is the fact that more and more garbage is making it's way out into the seas and it is soon going to cause a major impact on the environment.

Now chief among the naysayers that humankind has had a significant impact on the environment was former President George W Bush. In 2002, barely a year after taking office and a few months following the attacks of 9/11, the Environmental Protection Agency published a report in which they stated that a significant portion of the decline in the environment of the planet could be attributed to human interaction with the environment. What this meant was that the manufacturing, the carbon emissions, the trash generated by humans was causing enough of an impact to the environment that the planet was beginning to decline at a rapid rate. At that time, President Bush accepted the findings of the EPA but determined that a large portion of the global changes could also be attributed to the natural cycle of the planet's evolution.

Now I can understand the desire to believe that not every change in the environment is being caused by humans and it is quite likely that a lot of the climate changes are due to natural cycles in the planet's "life" but is that truly all that it is? Things like carbon emissions and carbon "footprints" can be debated but what i can't really see being debated is the fact that there is trash accumalating in large numbers on the open seas. Now it's not because people are intentionally throwing it out there but through direct or indirect actions it is ending up out there anyways. Scientists believe that some of the trash and debris that can be found in these Pacific Ocean garbage patches is likely the result of trash from storm drains and the like. And if that's the case then isn't it likely that humans are the cause behind it?

What we need to understand is that some of the intangible parts of global climate change can be debated but then again things like these garbage patches really can't. And they are having a negative impact on the environment though many times we choose to avoid understanding it. What I mean by that is that when the debris and trash is out of sight (and therefore out of mind) it doesn't seem like a big problem. But now imagine all that trash being dumped in front of your home or around your house. Then it would definitely be having an impact on your life wouldn't it? At that time then you wouldn't be able to ignore the fact that it is being caused by us and that it is something that we can change if we choose to.