Why is ecology education so important ? [School project, need opinions]

Balance of life?

What's the project? I really hope it's not a paper, or speech, that is suppose to explain why it's important. It's just common sense...it's important because it is!

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children".

It is important because it allows us to value and appreciate the life all around us. It is a part of biology, and hence science and empirical thought, that separates us from most animals - we can think, evaluate, and ponder the notion of being. As a higher order species, we are not a closed loop in which entropy increases. We can have an effect, possibly permanent, on the world. Our existence does not depend on a total dystopia or utopia, or extinction or survival. We can build civilizations and cause destruction or creation. We create very ideas of genesis and ask questions of the universe. It is hence necessary to learn how to control our power. Ecological education helps bend the closed loop curve by teaching how to bend it - how to save organisms and protect land. It shows us how to conserve resources and prolong our very sublime existence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism

http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/16/agnostic-carnivores-and-global-warming-why-enviros-go-after-coal-and-not-cows/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow
This Report of the Food And Agriculture Organisation is available here : http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

Because my country had no winter this year due to global warming and pollution, it's also very likely to have a very dry spring. What's even sadder is that stupid people are happy there was no snow not realizing that the crops will be fucked this year and food prices will be higher. I saw one idiot on TV who said he was very happy and that he'd been waiting for global warming to get here.

If people actually learned about this stuff in school maybe the planet would not be in the state it's in now. Like someone above said, it's even stupider that people think we're saving the planet, we're not. Even if we manage to make it so bad that we can't survive on it any longer, the planet will recover, it has recovered from major extinctions and cataclysms before. We're just a blink of an eye considering how old the planet is and how much longer it will continue to exist after we're gone. We need to keep it clean and in good shape so we can continue live on it.

Because Nature's Prophet can kill you if you dont respect nature.

Because that way people will keep believing "scientists" who are wrong since 1980.

This is a pretty good documentary about ecology, and what we can do to help the environment :)

Honestly I am of the belief that none of it matters -- that even the biggest of "disasters" (things like the massive BP oil spill) can ultimately be fixed. Even global warming can, in theory, be reversed over time. I'm not saying we can disregard the environment forever, but I think that if we genuinely put effort into the optimization of renewable energy that we can mostly disregard the environment until those projects reach their ultimate goals.

I believe the late George Carlin had some enlightening statements on the matter:

"The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!"

"The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas."

Full Source

Why is ecology education so important ? it isnt, the world is doomed, prepare for fallout instead ^^

Who says it's important? This question is suggestive, education shouldn't be suggestive (after all, that's pretty much what the NAZIS did, and you don't want to become a NAZI do you?).

I dislike shock treatments, and I think the ecology education you talk about is that, a way to frighten people in order to get them to do what you tell them needs to be done. It's not a bad thing per se, but it can lead to dogmatism, sticking to what people tell you is bad, not looking at the bigger picture.

General ecology, how organisms and their environment interact, that's an interesting subject, and it can be extended to discuss mankind's interaction with the environment, for example by comparison to other animals which displaced another's population, the effects of over-population, that kind of thing.

If by chance you meant the more general aspect of ecology, then yes, I'm for teaching that.

Personally I don't think we can "save the environment". We can try to hurt it less, but "we" are the small percentage who form the rich part of the world, where we have the spare time to give this some thought and energy.

in the midst of all the shit that going with planet earth, i dont think ecology is the highest priority.
sure its important, but the effect of our action as individuals wont even start to bend the pollution we started with the industrial era.
so unless we start making law to stop all the non eco-friendly production and factories, and forcing few law on the citizens. nothing can change

No, I'm not gonna write your paper.

To show people how dirty they are to their own future. Especially those 30liter/100km guys and you know what i mean

The best thing we could do is implement better education on the subject and maybe even teach our future generations to be more self sufficient.

There should be more "environmental taxation" on companies that exploit / hurt the Earth for profit. Then the money should be allocated towards reparations for damages done.

Instead of the working class and good samaritans having to clean up the mess, especially from big corporations which profit huge from such destruction.

1) Govt funding and subsidies to Amorphous solar cells, none of this crystal solar cell crap that takes 30 years to net any gain in energy from the energy required to produce it.

2)create tons of amorphous solar cell sheets for a large portion of homes (these can be printed on sheets of paper or metal roofing materials. (these cost 1/50th approx price of mainstream crystal solar cells to produce)

3) require energy companies to purchase excess energy at wholesale prices from individuals who produce more energy than they consume. and levvy large taxes on those who consume more energy than they produce.

now we have a large, easily produced portion of the population generating energy at 10-15% efficiency across all homes who get paid for it for minimal 500$ investment as opposed to the 30% efficient crystal solar cells that cost 15-20k to set up.

modify wind energy power plants to sail on kites, reducing the maintenance on their bearings from differentiating wind speed (because slipstream winds are relatively constant across the whole surface of the windmill. (windmills based on the ground require nearly the same amount of energy to run consistently because of maintenance and repairs that have to be frequently done on the bearings which get destroyed by the change of windspeed close to the ground and up high.)

Utilize hydro power wherever possible because it is the most efficient of all green energy sources.

use nuclear power. (more deaths are caused by coal burning power plants in one month than have ever been caused by nuclear power ever.) hybrid nuclear reactors create minisucle amounts of waste due to the repeated use of the same radioactive materials. once waste is produced, shoot it off into the sun and forget about it, don't bury it in the ground.)

once large amounts of clean energy are being produced, climate changes will take effect because you are essentially taking energy that would be used to heat the earth, or rotate the earth (from tidal energy) and transporting it to cities, or hotspots. over thousands of years, this will cause dramatic effect on the climate (slower than global warming, but it will effect weather patterns) this can be resolved by venting off heat into space somehow. now in a billion-ish years the sun will engulf the earth as it grows into a red giant. out two options are to either move elsewhere, or move earth elsewhere via planetary engines that alter our orbit around the sun as it expands. once we overcome that hurdle, if we are still in our solar system, the earth will become uninhabitable and probably be destroyed when our sun goes supernova in 3ish billion years. that will require us to escape to another homeworld, or live the rest of our lives in spacecraft harvesting asteroids rich in minerals to produce energy and materials to sustain ourselves.

kinda bleak when you get real far out there.

really the big thing to consider is that all energy is nuclear, it all comes from the sun, even coal, oil, natural gas, it is all part of a ongoing gigantic fusion reactor. Once you are producing enough energy for the entire world to live off of then you can focus on raising quality of life for everyone across the world, energy is the root of all problems, and the lack of it is the only thing that causes healthcare issues, food issues, water issues, all of this is rooted in lack of energy.

once the whole world no longer has to fight to survive, there is a huge pool of human knowledge at your disposal, all of us can then put that power to solving the future hurdles I had mentioned.

Because without it, pot will stop growing, and nobody wants that.

this planet was better off without humans, we are like a plague of locusts and consume everything

Read Watchmen and everything about why Ecology is important will become clear.

A book i would recommend is Endgame, 2 volumes, by Derrick Jensen. He is basically against civilization as we know it. The first volume explains the issues, the second volume tries to find solutions. You don't have to agree with him, but he is nevertheless i think a necessary read for anyone interested in ecology. You might also want to have a look at the E.L.F.

To make people more susceptible to allow inflated prices, taxes and policies. People need to be behind the fake reasons for cash being used and taken :)

It's not.