The Beginning
The year is 4.3 million BC, respectively, and the first human like species begins to roam the earth. It is peaceful and life is plentiful. Is is seen wherever you look, from the pristine clear blue waters of the coastline with ancient algae blossoming to the green, lush, rainforests filled with obscure mammals and inscrutable reptiles. She walked upright on two flat feet, unaware of the harm that her future children would bring to the planet. The planet is also unaware, giving her all the tools to evolve into a forward thinking species. Over millions of years, this chimp-like creature changed. I became self aware, developed language, discovered tools and fire. Then there was Homo Sapiens, spreading like a parasite from one continent to the next. They became Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Galileo and Columbus; they became the legends we hear about today. With the discovery of new worlds and people, we became smarter. We first lived off of the land, then thrived off of it. With each stage the earth grew more and more weary. The year is 2015 and you can practically hear the earth groan with each step we take. We have exploited the ocean, pumped carbon dioxide into the air at a faster rate than ever before, and the industrial revolution is just beginning.
How have human activities (That's us!) created environmental costs to our natural resources?
In 1815 Canada was a young country with much to offer. Much of the land was covered with dense forest. On three sides, Canada is next to bountiful oceans, while also containing a huge portion of the worlds fresh water. Canada is also made out of a large variety of rocks; sedimentary rocks and molten lava from the chain of volcanoes that border the west coast make up the majority of the country. Of course, early settlers who stumbled upon the country didn't realize this at first. What they saw was the beaver pelts that were extremely fashionable in Europe at the time. it was only later, after exploiting Canada's native species that they discovered the abundance of fish in our oceans.
As Europe (mainly France) was experiencing a fish shortage (a predominately Catholic/Christian society, remember) someone thought it would be a great idea to ship the fish over to Europe. While, in proportion this didn't really harm our environment, it does however mark the start of an economically driven nation.
Human Activities
Forestry
In the early 1800s to early 1900s, forestry was barely practiced. It was not until the 1960s that proper technology was used that made the industry serious, and not until the 1990s that forestry really sped up. It was then that machines that made forestry easier were developed. While the forestry industry in Canada brings in millions off dollars each year, techniques of the past and of current have been a detriment to the environment. We are just beginning to see the effects on the environment that we have caused from decades earlier. We have cut down many trees while putting in little effort to replenish the tree population. Luckily, efforts are being heightened to reverse this.
Fishing
The fishing industry has been quite large in Canada has been quite large since our humble beginnings. While the first nations of Canada didn't use it as an "industry", they were still quite reliant on salmon populations. As time went on, we began first shipping fish to Europe, then the rest of the world. While over fishing is currently a global issue, our populations of salmon and cod have both been threatened greatly in the past. Efforts such as farm fishing and different techniques of fishing (e.g. using different nets) are being practiced currently. The problem with over fishing is it doesn't just affect the species we are overfishing, but the species prey, the species predator, and in conjuction a multitude of other species.
Mining
The mining industry has really boomed in recent years. Mining differs slightly from the other two main industries of Canada and their negative effects because of the nature of mining. Not only are we mining things like oil and coal that will be burnt and pollute the environment, but in the process of mining these things we put the environment under stress of air pollution and the occasional oil spill (when shipping oil out of northern BC, etc.). It is hard to justify this, other than with the fact Canada is abundant with oil, coal, uranium, and natural gas and the exploitation of these items produce a copious amount of money for the country.
THE COST
Unfortunately, this all comes at a greater cost. Of course we cannot pin all climate change on to Canada, especially when our population is a relatively miniscule 37 million. All I am saying is that these three industries have contributed to the national diminishing of our resources. We are putting in significant effort to reverse our ways, but will it be enough? While fish and trees are both renewable, mining is not (at least least not on a scale that we will see in our life times), and can we really justify near extinction and over fishing for our personal gains as a species? these are questions we must act yourself, for it is not just humans that our earth works to sustain, and while we have acted as a parasite in recent years, host animals always find a way to develop immunity.
WORKS CITED
- "About." FortisBC. Web. 17 June 2015.
- "View Geographical, Political, Weather, Solar Source, Forest Resource, Location Maps of Canada." Maps of Canada. Web. 17 June 2015.
- "World History Timeline." World History Timeline. Web. 17 June 2015.
And of course the online curriculum of Social studies 10 online at eschoolbc.sd23.bc.ca
