Writing Assignment help on : Human dietary habits are leading to extinction of species and environmental pollution
Human dietary habits are leading to extinction of species and environmental pollution
Human diet is affecting the environment and leading to animal extinction. The thesis statement is that humans should change their dietary habits as they are leading to animal extinction and environmental pollution and damage. The biggest danger currently being posed, due to human dietary habits, is to sea species. Seafood is rapidly gaining popularity around the world. Seafood is the term used to denote to any form of sea life which is regarded as food by humans. It includes fishes, oysters, mollusks and other sea life which are consumed by human beings. Seafood is consumed all over the world; it is one of the primary sources of very high quality protein. Per capita consumption of sea food is highest in countries like Japan, Iceland and Portugal (Nesheim MC and Yaktine AL (Eds),2007).
Overfishing to meet the human demand for sea food is fast depleting the natural stock of fishes in the world’s water reserves. Shark fin soup is a very popular delicacy in countries like China. Overfishing of shark has disturbed the entire marine ecological system. Blue-finned tuna has already been declared endangered. An international study released in a 2006 issue of journal Science claimed that one-third of all fishing stocks in the world have collapsed. A collapse in fishing stock means that the current stock has declined to less than 10 % of maximum observed and recorded stock of fishes in a water reserve. Another report by Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations says that more than 25 % of the world’s natural reserves of fishes are over-exploited and depleted due to overfishing. Sea species like the Steller’s sea cow of the North Pacific and the sea mink of the Gulf of Maine have already become extinct due to overfishing. Chesapeake Bay, off the Atlantic Ocean, is the largest estuary in United States of America. Today Chesapeake Bay is an impoverished marine eco-system dominated mainly by disease causing bacteria. The reason: overfishing of oysters to satisfy human needs. Oysters have for long been one of the most popular seafood (Italian writer Giacomo Casanova is said to have consumed 50 oysters a day as he considered them good for his virility!). Besides oysters, grey whales, dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, river otters and giant sturgeon were in abundance in Chesapeake Bay. Today they have all been virtually eliminated in the course of human beings’ never ending appetite for more and more sea food (Nesheim MC and Yaktine AL (Eds),2007).
The problem is not limited to extinction of sea species. Global warming is the trend of rising average temperature of earth’s surface observed since the late nineteenth century. The reason for global warming has been attributed to the increasing release of greenhouse gases due to human activities. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane etc trap solar radiations, thereby increasing the temperature of earth. Among these human activities, human dietary habits top the list. According to a 2006 report of Food and Agricultural Organization of United States, human diets, and particularly the meat in them cause more greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere than either transportation or industry (Nathan Fiala, 2009). Many forests have been destroyed to make way for ranches and other facilities required for the production and rearing of livestock like beef. The same report stated that current production levels of meat contribute between 14 per cent and 22 per cent to the 36 billion tons or so of greenhouse gases which are produced annually. The production of annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas a car driven for more than 1800 miles! (Nathan Fiala, 2009)
So how can human beings change their dietary habits so as to prevent the extinction of other animal species and lessen environmental pollution? The answer is by keeping a continuous watch on the carbon footprint of their dietary habits. Carbon footprint is the term for the greenhouse gas emissions produced from the activity of an event, organization or individual (Wright, L., Kemp, S., Williams, I.,2011). They should give up eating those items that cause more environmental pollution and embrace those items which cause relatively less environmental pollution. For instance beef production emits 13 times more pollution in terms of greenhouse gases than chicken production and 57 times more than potato production. So taking more chicken and potatoes in one’s diet is more environmental friendly and sustainable than taking beef. Similarly while consuming seafood consumers should take cognizance of the source of that seafood i.e. whether it has been sourced from a legal and licensed commercial farm or not. Sea species which are endangered should be immediately given up from human diet. If human beings do not change their dietary habits soon then many of animal and sea species will become extinct; our marine and ground ecological systems will be irreversibly damaged; our quality of lives will greatly deteriorate and the earth will just become an impoverished planet of over-fed and overweight human species.
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