Social Psychology and the Sustainable Future Essay Example for Free

Social Psychology and the Sustainable time to come EssayWhat has Global warming, Oz one(a) Layer Depletion, Spetroleum Erosion, Air Pollution, Carbon Emissions, and new(prenominal) environmental issues have to do with Social Psychology? One of the reasons for writing this paper, is to answer that question by showing the relationship between the environment in which we live and sociable psychology.I get out endeavor to do this by looking at a radical cause behind our ecological dilemma, as well as offering possible solutions and suggestions for social behavioral changes that each one of us could employ, as not only caring human worlds, plainly as Christians finishing our God-given mandate to rule over the earth He created in the capacity of c atomic number 18takers and stewards. As explained by Dr.David G Myers in his excellent book empower Exploring Social Psychology, the study of social psychology is a study in which social psychologists scientificall(a)y explore how we as humans think about, influence, and relate to one other Myers 2009 p. 1. He goes on to quote novelist Herman Melvilles poignant observation, which states, we cannot live for ourselves alone, for our lives atomic number 18 affiliated by 1000 invisible threads Myers 2009 p. 1.And on that pointin lies the root cause of our ecological problems. Because of our social orientation be our personality psychology or psychodynamics which forms our worldview by the way weve been taught to think and act indoors the society in which we grew up, nearly people and societies, if not all, argon in herently self-centered. A perfect example of this societal self-centeredness is clearly seen here in the United States of America, more so than in any other place in the world.The unrestrained, unbridled, and unprecedented consumerism and waste has sadly become this countries social norm. Generally speaking, we as humans, tend to give minuscule thought, either intentionally or unintentionally, ab out how our attitude, actions, and behaviors might affect others in the society in which we live or for that matter, the rest of the world. Because our lives atomic number 18 connected by 1000 invisible threads, our attitude, behavior, and actions cannot help exclusively effect others.We are connected in many different ways, just now primarily we are connected by being members of one and the same human race, sharing an earth which we all call home. Therefore, social psychology and the sustainable future of our environment are connected in the sense that as human beings, sharing the same earth, social psychologist can positively influence societies to bring about change through implementing strategies within a society through educational and other means, that would address the contend for other-centeredness, as opposed to self-centeredness within our societies.This hopefully, through educational campaigns, would over succession alter social norms throughout spheric societies, and help to positively shape our attitudes, behaviors and actions toward the environment in which we live, and encourage a more sustainable environmental future. The mathematical function of environmental education, is to bring social awarenessof how each individuals attitude actions and behavior, can and does have an environmental affect whether positive or negative, not only themselves and their own environment, that on the environment of others also.So, environmentally speaking, this means that each individual person, group, society and nations environmental habits and conductstyle which is mainly guided by the social normsof the country and the floriculture in which they are living, can have a global environmental impact. Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 4 Social, psychologically make thought processes, cause individuals and groups within a society or culture, to behave in ways that are considered normal to them, even though theyre ttitude, behavior and actions a re environmentally devastating. One of the ways I can illustrate the fact of how our attitudes, behaviors, and actions another words what we do and how we live, can and does affect others environment even though they may be living on the other side of the world, is by looking at the worldwide issues of stress pollution and its causes.Air is something that every living thing needs, as the famous 70s hit song sung by the British groupThe Hollies states, all I need is the picnic that I breathe. some other translation of that song humorously states I need to be able to breathe. That we need demeanor to breathe is an axiom, a self evident truth, for without it we die. In actual fact, air is one of the reasons wherefore Earth is the only planet within our solar system that can sustain life, and in which life can be found. Air supports life, that the air has to be clean for life to be sustained. We dont really need to be told that the air is contaminated these days because we can se e it.This is in particular true if you pop off to live in the city of Los Angeles, which for many years has been the butt of smog jokes, and recently topped the American lung Associations bad air list of most polluted cities in America GMA news 2012. Why is the air polluted so badly? How did it get that way? The city of Los Angeles, care many other places in the world today are to a great degree responsible for producing much of the bad air in their cities.However, bad air is now being found in cities and other places where there is no air polluting factories or industry to blame. This is because air pollution does not recognize international boundaries, and give care the proverbial trapeze artists, pollution in the form of hepato cyanogenetic emissions can and do fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Because of this, bad air has turned up in places where it did not originate such as National Parks and wilderness areas in remote parts of the United States.This is due to the fact that one countries air polluting practices can have a dramatic effect on another countries air quality located on the other side of the world. Toxic pollutants and emissions rebel from factory smokestacks, power plants, and exhaust emissions , from countries who have no clean air act and therefore are under no threat of penalty or prosecution for noncompliance. These toxic emissions, are the result of unrestrained air polluting practices by countries who show little or no interest in environmental conservation.This toxic pollution rises into the wind currents and jet-streams, which carry the poisonous air hundreds, or even thousands of miles away to another part of the world, where it then affects the air quality of the place where it settles, creating health hazards and pollution within that cities population and location. So, the irresponsible polluting behavior and actions of one group/country, can have a drastic negative effect on another person/s, group/s, countr y/or countries, causing them to suffer debilitating health hazard consequences for which they were not responsible in creating.So you see in this one small illustration, how another person/s, group/s, or even other countries irresponsible attitude, actions, and behavior toward environmental conservation issues, can inadvertently and negatively affect another person/s, group/s, or even a whole countrys populations health and well being. Many first world countries have environmental laws that heavily penalize companies for noncompliance, and therefore helps to limits air pollution to varying degrees.Yet there are more countries who dont have any environmental laws, restrictions, or boundaries in place, and who Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 6 do not recognize or practice environmental conservation. And so these developing countries by their who cares, its business as usual attitude and behavior, become one of the major contributors of bad air on a global scale, through th eir uncontrolled, unrestrained, release of toxic emissions into the atmosphere where it becomes an international traveler.However, air pollution caused by toxic emissions is only one of the environmental concerns facing humanity today. Another environmental concern, which we are being constantly reminded of through the news reports, newspapers, Internet, etc. is the issue of global warming. This is also cognize as climate change. Scientists use the name, or term global warming, so as to identify what types of climate change is actually incident i. e. , the planet is not getting cooler but warmer, ergo, global warming. One of the reasons they state this is hazard is due to the excessive amount of a gas known as carbon dioxide.This is carbon dioxide, which is something that we, after taking in oxygen through the air, actually exhale. go CO2 is an odorless, tasteless, inert gas, it is also a byproduct of combustion, which is generally contributed to automobile emissions. However, while CO2 is a byproduct of automotive engine gasoline/ diesel engine/natural gas combustion, it is also a byproduct of combustion associated with the burning of coal and oil to generate electricity and heat buildings. In fact, anything that burns go out have CO2 as one of its emission byproducts. Because of the increase of automobiles, trucks, factories, etc. here is an excessive amount of carbon dioxide constantly being released into the atmosphere. Along with the disforestation of whole rainforests note trees absorb CO2 gases and convert CO2 into oxygen by the process of photosynthesis. This is one of Gods brilliant ideas for replenishing the oxygen we use. However, by cutting down all the trees in the forest, were destroying the earths Co2 converter, Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 7 and the combination of other greenhouse gases , which come from agricultural and industrial sources, global warming is the result.However, there is also another detrimental effect of ha ving too much CO2 in the air that has to do with ones respiratory health, and is known by a condition called hypoxia, or hypoxiation. West, 1995 p. 22 This is a pathological condition in which the body as a whole, or region of the body is deprived of qualified oxygen supply. This is due to the fact that the body is deprived of oxygen because CO2 in the lungs is inhibited from being released, and so accumulates causing too much CO2 to be where oxygen needs to be, and therefore death ensues as a result. West, 1995 pp. 22. The use of CO2 displacing oxygen is great for evokefighting is actually a preferred fire extinguisher in place of chemical powder for distinguishing fires, but its no good for breathing. The world climate is changing because CO2 is in excess, and humans are the reason why it is so. So far weve looked at some causes of air pollution and how it can originate from one part of the the world and through air currents effect everybody globally.But in discussing social psy chology in the sustainable future air pollution is only one component of many. There are many environmental concerns for a sustainable future, which also include water pollution. Just as we need clean air to survive, so also we need clean water for both drinking and food. In actual fact, it is quite possible for a person to go many days and even weeks without food, but only a few days without water. Clean water is essential for drinking as well as sustaining aquatic and marine life in our rivers and oceans.However, with the high human demand for oil, environmental catastrophes and incidents such as the Exxon-Valdez oil spilloff the coast of Alaska in 1989, and most recently the BP oil Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 8 spill of 2010, have polluted the life-sustaining ocean waters and left a path of ecological destruction, which much like the fallout from an nuclear bomb, may take forever, if ever, to recover. Even now as I write this, were told by BP officials and their advertising campaigns, that the waters in the Gulf are back to pre-oil spill status.However, a recent study reported by Brian Williams on NBC national news states that marine life such as dolphins are seriously ill and due to health problems consistent with exposure to oil. Illness ranging from lung dioceanse, kidney malfunctions and liver disease has been found throughout dolphin population which cause has been attributed to the ingesting of oil NBC nightly news March 23 2012. Basically what were being told through the million-dollar advertising campaign by BP, is not true.We are still reaping the consequences caused by the commodious oil spill where oil spewed out from the ground unrestrained for months. On top of water pollution, the sea is being devastated daily by the big nets and Longlines of mercantile angleing vessels. Longline weighting is a commercial fishing technique. It uses a long line called the main line which can be up to 50 miles long, with thousands of baite d maulers attached at intervals of approximately every 20 yards. Hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks can hang from a single line.Although Longliners commonly target tuna, cod, halibut, alas a baited hook is not very selective and many other species are caught and killed inadvertently. This is very troublesome, especially for those animals, mammals, and fish species that are on the jeopardize list, i. e. The leathery turtle Sea Turtle. Seaturtles. org 2003 Can you imagine a 50 mile long fishing line with corks set at every 20 yards, or huge Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 8 dragnets, scraping the bottom of the sea for its fish, crap, shrimp and other marine life.This is all done to fulfill the growing populations appetite for seafood. Yet he growing need for bigger collect is only one part of this very important ecological problem. Another part is the damage that is caused by the implements used in reap. I have personally seen the damage to the bottom of the s ea caused by the nets being used to harvest fish from on the bottom of the sea beds. These nets are called drag-nets for good reason, as they scrape the bottom of the oceans floor so that nothing escapes. As they scrape along the bottom of the sea, they drag every kind of a marine life you can imagine into the net.The ocean floor then looks like its just been plowed. Thus, these drag-nets reach behind a path of destruction in their wake, by destroying all aquatic plants, and marine life forms and the environment in which they live. Another issue that is caused by fishing trawlers using dragnets, is waste. Nets are by no means selective as anything and everything gets caught in the net. Once these nets are hauled in, much of what is caught in the nets is not used, but impel out for reasons of either being under size, wrong variety, or in some way illegal etc.Some of the seafood is kept, and the other is thrown out to die. The fish and marine species that are caught in the nets or on the long lines as a byproduct, sea turtles, including the extremely endangered Leatherback sea turtle, various sharks, including some species which are also endangered, and also others. Seeing there is no international laws to reduce bycatch, we can expect that many more species will be added to the endangered list as part of the long-term decline, caused by these devastating fishing practices.So apart from destroying the environment which sustains our fish and marine life in our oceans, rivers and waters through pollution, waste and harvesting practices, we keep the Psychology and Sustainable Future 9 devastation by overfishing the waters to to the extent that fish that were once found in abundance 50 years ago, are now at the point of extinction and have been placed on the endangered list. Two of the fish species I would like to talk about here were, up till recently, very common. One is the Atlantic cod, and the other the Giant jack mackerel Tuna.These two fish species once abundantly populated the Atlantic Ocean until the implementation of gill nets, drag nets, and now the dreaded long-lines of commercial fishing vessels. In a relatively short amount of time, the use nets and long lines have devastated the cod and tuna populations worldwide through overfishing. Even though size limits and harvesting amounts have been supposedly set by international bodies, Atlantic Cod, Bluefin Tuna, and many other fish species are under the gun, and may never recover, especially the majestic bluefin tuna, which is much coveted by sushi chefs and is considered a delicacy in Japan.Maybe it is for this reason that Japan, under the guise of supposedly abiding by the international fishing laws, have reportedly and consistently ignored the international laws for size limits and harvesting amounts. Through their longline fishing vessel fleet have continued at a ever increasing rate to catch bluefin tuna, to the point that they, could be considered to be the major contribut ing factor, as to why this fish species is numerically declining to a point of having to be put on the endangered fish species list. Glover, Charles. The End of the Line. 2008.It is a well-known fact that the Mitsubishi Corporation. Not only owns some(prenominal) long line ships which go out to sea for months at a time and dont come back until their freezes are all full of bluefin tuna, but is the major acquirer of bluefin tuna. As well as fishing for bluefin tuna with their own fishing vessels. They have also been known to purchase as much bluefin tuna as they Social Psychology in the Sustainable Future 10 can, from other fishing vessels. These vessels are known as Pirate Fishing Vessels, ignore international fishing laws and catch all they can in what you might call an undercover operation.These pirate fishing vessels have, within the past 10 years, come under a lot of scrutiny by the Greenpeace organization who sail the seas searching for these pirate fishing vessels so as to c atch them in the act. Of illegal fishing, netting, long lining etc. Greenpeace. org 2011. Although many nations, including the United States, supposedly participate as international management bodies to obligate global tuna populations, the species continues to decline at an alarming rate and are now on top of the endangered species list because its numbers have humble to such a point that it may never be able to recover.As you can tell air and water pollution combined with overfishing is a concern of mine, mainly because I see it is preventable, but for the selfish, self-centered, all-consuming greed of people from all walks of life I could continue on for quite some time, merely I must bring this article assignment to a conclusion by talking about causes of environmental damage. As much as we like to blame tornadoes and hurricanes for most of the environmental damage, the biggest cause of environmental damage is man himself. Mankind is now the number one cause of all the destr uction happening on Earth.We are the major cause of environmental disasters, beginning with the industrial exploitation of the resources of the Earth, which has become especially bad since the population of the Earth has trippled in the defy fifty years to a point which, even with more efficient means of distribution, there is simply not enough food to go around. simply the reasons for the possible future scarcity of food, water, among other things, is the uneconomical lifestyles that we have become accustomed to, especially here in the United States.All you need to do is look around in any restaurant here in the United States and see the huge Social Psychology and a Sustainable Future 11 amounts of food being thrown out in the trashcan while people on the other side of the world starve. Its been noted in the book, exploring social psychology by David G Myers, that the human demand for things such as land, timber, fish, and fuels is increasingly exceeding the Earths regenerating capacity. Myers, 2009 p. 378-379.My point is this, with the present consumption of resources by our, wasteful habits and devastating harvesting techniques, coupled with the destined growth of population, further pollution, global warming, and environmental destruction, seem inevitable unless there is change. For the average American who lives with luxuries unknown by even royalty just a century ago, our lifestyle of unrestrained, unbridled, ever wanting more consumerism will be brought to a screeching halt unless there is change. Lets face it our wasteful lifestyles cannot continue forever. For beyond the sunny skies of comfort and convenience.Dark clouds of environmental disaster at gathering. Sciences have accredited this coming ecological, environmental disaster to increasing population and increasing consumption. Myers, 2009 p377. I come to this conclusion due to my observations of the wasteful practices I see around me every day of my life here in the United States I offer this small yet effective illustration of the environmental conservation. In Australia where I was raised, we grew up with tank water. Where you rely on the rain to fill a tank that is used for your drinking water, bathing, and bathroom uses etc.Under these conditions you learn to conserve and not waste water in every way possible. One of the ways I taught my children to conserve water was not to leave the tap running when they were brushing their teeth. They were instructed to turn the tap on to wet the brush, then turn the tap off while they apply the toothpaste to the brush and brush their teeth. After they had brush their teeth, they could then turn the tap on to rinse out their mouth and clean their toothbrush. Idiosyncratic? Not really. Just letting my children learn not to waste water and to appreciate the God-given resources we have procurable to us.