The increase of the human population and the actions by the human population are the common link between all resource challenges. Two terrestrial resource challenges are solid waste and agricultural farmland with the main causes for each resource varying considerably. While solid waste is produced individually at approximately one thousand and twenty-eight pounds per year, farm land experiences accelerated eroding of agricultural soils or deterioration in addition to losing precious farm acreage to new or existing development. Nearly all of the reasons for the issues being faced regarding the Earth’s resources and how to sustain them, points to human actions.
The way these issues threaten sustainability is by human action. The ever growing global population is pushing the production of quality food past its ability to maintain doing so and with the rate of soil erosion about seven times greater than that of soil formation, it is near impossible to keep production high on such unfertile ground. Encroaching on farmland to build new developments in order to keep up with the populations need for housing is another major cause of unsustainability in agricultural lands. There is no room in a sustainability plan for loss of agricultural land. The land that is used for producing food for the United States citizens and others around the world is already in jeopardy due to such activities as over grazing.
“We have to find ways to produce food to meet present and future needs while protecting the soil and water upon which agriculture depends (both an immediate and a long-term challenge). In other words, we have to ensure that current agricultural practices are sustainable,” (Chiras, 2013, p. 170).
Solid waste is produced in masses due to over packaging of products, over consumption, and then the lack of the three R’s, reduce, recycle, reuse. With the knowledge that is known presently about the damage being done to the environment and how to possibly turn a portion of it around simply by recycling, reusing, and reducing, it is hard to fathom why this practice is not mandatory in every county of every state in the union. Noticeably neither of these issues affects me personally, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in the very near future. A new situation to an old issue can arise at any moment and it can either be positive or disastrous in nature.
According to Chiras, there are three groups to which reducing waste falls: output, input, and throughput. To create a sustainable society, efforts should be concentrated on the input and throughput solutions, (2013). Reusing, recycling, and composting are a throughput strategy and in my opinion the best approach, even if only the first initial approach.
Sustainable systems of “agriculture consist of practices that produce high-quality food in ways that protect the long-term health and productivity of soils,” (Chiras, 2013, p. 178). “Creating such a system will require a multifaceted approach including measures to slow and perhaps stop the growth of the human population,” (Chiras, 2013, p. 178). This type of approach includes (1) protection for existing soil and water resources; (2) increasing land size and production; (3) reduce the amount of food loss to pests; and (4) alternative food development or eat much lower on the food chain, such as a vegetarian diet. A vegetarian diet will feed more people than a diet consisting of meats and poultry.
The biggest challenge in implementing these strategies/solutions is getting everyone onboard. The best way to ensure that this occurs is to start educating and layout a timeline for the programs employment to become part of the community’s daily routine. In most cases, once it becomes second nature, then a reversal of fate can be taken into account and the beginning of a sustainable system can be made. If successful, then underdeveloped countries can begin receiving assistance on how to do the same practices and hopefully global success can be reached with a sustainable global system.
