While the financial crisis is not necessarily a new issue, over the years we have become
more aware of the pressing problem that has affected our world in the past and
present. According to
Investopedia, a ‘financial crisis’ is defined as a situation in which the value
of financial institutions or assets drops rapidly. A financial crisis is often associated with a panic or a run
on the banks, in which investors sell off assets or withdraw money from savings
accounts with the expectation that the value of those assets will drop if they
remain at a financial institution.
Throughout this post, I will be addressing and discussing the role that the
financial crisis plays in our society.
Financially,
in 1929, The Great Depression was the first time that this crisis was brought
to our societies attention. Today,
being financially aware is the standard way of consuming and investing
financial resources. NewsOK
addressed that the financial crisis has gripped the global economy and is
fueling resentment that could force people into a crisis where they lost sight
of the crisis at hand. They also
state that this crisis has become the deepest recession since World War
II. Though the past and present
seem so distant from each other, we still face identical challenges in our world
today.
Sometimes
we forget how resourceful our economy is in the present. Often, we find ourselves taking our
resources for granted. The Lessons
of Easter Island makes us aware of how easy attainable our wants and needs can
be met. In Easter Island, they did
not have the technology we are accessible to now. They used natural resources such as wood and vegetation to
survive. They used these resources
for agricultural gain, cooking materials, household goods, and travel. They were consumers who took from the
environment and never gave back to it.
As a society and population
today, we have been looking for ways to learn from our past of over
consumption. This will help
address a solution for our financial issues we have recently encountered in the
present. According to Ecosystems
and Human Well-Being, it states, economic and financial interventions provide
powerful instruments to regulate the use of ecosystem goods and services. Today, we don’t necessarily need to be
scared of our over consumptions but we need to look to the past for guidance on
how to make it more environmentally friendly.
Now
that the financial crisis has been addressed, do you believe that it is a
crisis to be scared of or just a way of life?
Hi, Grace; Your discussion of the economic crisis we are experiencing is interesting. You've done a nice job of explaining the specifics in a way anyone could understand. I'm not sure you have entirely developed a relationship between the issues described in the Ecosystem Millennium Assessment and the financial crisis. I see where you are going, but the argument could be more explicit.
ReplyDeleteHi Grace,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you have addressed financial sustainability in our country because that is a very relevant topic. However, I agree with Dr. Armstrong that tying in the environmental aspects from the readings would been more effective.
I think that during financial crises in the past, people became more resourceful to save money. Today, I think people are more likely to disregard environmentally sustainable practices, such as buying local products, because they write them off as being more expensive.
Grace, I believe that we should buy produce and food as we need it because too much is ending up in the landfill. I think that we should monitor our waste and use of crops more wisely in order to help out this financial crisis and we would end up buying and wasting less.
ReplyDeletePer the U.S. EPA, when food is disposed in a landfill it quickly rots and becomes a significant source of methane — a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Landfills are a major source of human-related methane in the United States, accounting for more than 20 percent of all methane emissions. Reducing, recovering, and recycling food waste diverts organic materials from landfills and incinerators, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and waste combustion. And since we now throw away more food than anything else, that means we are throwing away a lot of our money!
Great comments, ladies!
ReplyDeleteDr. Armstrong, Beth, and Maegen thank you for your feed back. When referring back to the Ecosystem Millennium Assessment, we are overspending and underusing our resources that we posses. Today, we have to buy the crops, food, and timber, whereas in Easter Island they did not have to buy the resources they could simply just traded and were self-efficient. In the Ecosystem Millennium article, we have to pay attention to the costs we are paying and if we are overpaying for our supplies as well as making sure we don't "waste" our resources that could hurt the environment. In Easter Island, they actually used their resources and in the Ecosystem Millennium they are trying to figure out a way to reduce the costs of of excessive nutrient loadings and conserve their finances by using "biodiversity offsets" that will protect the project that causes biodiversity. The Ecosystem Millennium is trying to conserve products and costs unlike Easter Island.
ReplyDelete