Introduction
Human activities have led to dramatic environmental changes within the last few decades. If humankind cannot set limits and standards on how to interact with the environment, then catastrophic predicaments in the near future are inevitable. According to Tostevin (116), humanity has taken control of nature by developing a culture that believes in risk-taking as opposed to risk management.
The dazzling array of technological advancements in genetic engineering and the growth of human consumption, which depletes natural resources, will soon confine human beings to self-made catastrophes in the future.
This paper will show that humankind should transform its mastery in risk taking and change the winner’s mentality by voluntary restraining. Human beings will have to revise the agenda of economic growth or live a worthless life whereby everyone will have to fight for survival.
Self-restraining
Humanity is full of appetite of material things, hence placing the nature at risk. Although self-limiting is a phenomenon that is within people’s abilities, individuals lack the will and desire to restrain. It is ironical for humankind to control nature, but fail to cut on its desires and preserve the environment.
While fulfilling life desires, people are obsessed with the present pleasures and forget about what the future holds for humanity if they keep on exploiting the nature. For instance, the novel, How the Dead Dream, by Lydia Millet, accounts on the life of a character T. This character is an obsessed capitalist who has ventured into the real estate industry.
Real estate involves land clearing for construction, thus causing deforestation and minimizing arable land for agriculture. This move is a selfish agenda, thus compelling migration of wildlife to common zones, hence risking extinction.
T does not care about anybody around him, as his obsession for money is keeps him going until he runs over a coyote while rushing home from work. Seeing the animal die evokes a sense of humanity in T’s heart. This event marks a turning point for T’s capitalistic obsession and he quits real estate and turns to animal protection (Millet 56).
This aspect shows that human beings are not prepared to restrain growth until an ugly situation unfolds. However, the pertinent question is – for how long will humanity wait? Global warming has shown its effects, but human beings are still burning fossils fuels. Those who are not ready to regulate growth will argue that measures will be invented to take care of any future eventualities.
Unfortunately, humanity is reluctant to cut on consumption. Environmental contamination has reached unparalleled heights. Human beings should cut on the use of pesticides, since they threaten aquatic extinction. Bees are becoming rare due to excess chemicals in the atmosphere.
Humanity should adopt solar energy and abandon carbon dioxide-emitting fuels, which cause atmospheric imbalances, thus leading to greenhouse gas effects. For example, the film Wall-E is about a robot named Wall-E, which is designed for waste collection. The robot predicts what is about to face humanity in the near future.
Wall-E is left alone on earth to clean all garbage since life is unbearable for human beings. Eve, another robot, is sent to earth to see if the place is habitable once again. Wall-E falls in love with Eve and he has to protect her from the dust, rains, lightening, and all sorts of environmental disasters (Wall-E).
This film warns humanity of the impending dangers if limits on how to interact with the environment are not set. Most nations use nonrenewable resources and chemicals in food production, thus causing damage to soil and organisms.
Humanity should not live in a plastic bubble to ensure survival and make life increasingly meaningless. With the consequences awaiting humanity in the near future, the few people willing to cut on growth will demand the alteration of democracy and compulsory limits to be enforced by the lawmakers.
By encouraging self-limits, it does not mean that humanity is conservative. If through the laboratory technology scientists can get the vaccines for HIV/AIDS, everybody will celebrate. Unfortunately, lab-engineered solutions will not solve the impeding problem of extinction.
The notion that the future will shape itself and solve its problem is selfish and bizarre, since the present humanity does not want to take responsibility. The future generation will have to bear the consequences of ills that they cannot understand.
The current situation might be biased since the rich easily put up with acid rain or polluted environs by relocating, while the poor and weak suffer; however, these migratory and tolerance behaviors will not solve the problem of environment destruction.
In the near future, the rich will not be in a position to cope with the many tsunamis among other catastrophes and finally environmental disasters will be a common tragedy. For example, in the novel, Oryx and Crake, Snowman is a character living among primitive creatures resembling humans and he recalls that one time as a small boy, he lived in a capitalistic world where the mighty dominated the weak (Atwood 67).
He decides to return to the ruins occupied by genetically modified animals. This speculative novel tells of a time when all animals will be extinct and human existence will be unsustainable on earth.
Only genetically modified organisms will survive the climate changes of the time if human activities are not contained. If growth at all levels is not limited to conscious levels, then even the growth itself may not last, since the nature will be exhausted.
Future directives
Capitalists maintain their statuses by exploiting and polluting the environment, while researchers make money from their endless researches. Therefore, the issue becomes a tragedy to everyone, and thus the international community should impose regulations to preserve the nature.
Most problems affecting the nature are developmental and they can be regulated before they advance to irreversible levels. Wants and desires are created through the people’s manipulation of tastes through advertisement (Tostevin 149).
continued growth in economic sector will lead to the depletion of resources and production of wastes. Efforts should be geared towards the use of renewable energies such as solar energy coupled with a campaign for responsible consumption and the obliteration of materialism. This does not mean that manufacturing should be replaced by artisanship; on the contrary, it advocates the production of what is essential.
Conclusion
Humankind should become responsible and preserve the environment for posterity. The era of scientific enlightenment should not be interpreted as the platform to display might and mastery of nature through careless experimentations. The three texts explored in this paper have shown predictive scenarios of how life might be unsustainable in the near future.
In the recent past, human life has been dependent on chemicals, which run through people’s bodies. This aspect is unhealthy and it may lead to mutations, which result in premature deaths. Therefore, in a bid to avoid such issues, humanity should reconsider its ways and preserve nature.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake: A Novel, New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003. Print.
Millet, Lydia. How the Dead Dream: A Novel, Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008. Print.
Tostevin, Bob. The Promethean Illusion: The Western Belief in Human Mastery of Nature, Jefferson: McFarland, 2010. Print.
Wall-e. Andrew Stanton. Buena Vista: Walt Disney Pictures, 2008. Film.