It is easy to get discouraged when considering the world's many series environmental problems. But do not lose track of the conclusions that emerges from our examination of these problems-each of the world's many problem is solvable. If one looks at how environmental problems have been overcome, a clear pattern emerges. Viewed simply, there are five components to successfully solving any environmental problem.
1. ASSESSMENT. The first stage is scientific analyses of the problem, the gathering of information about what is happening. To construct a scientific model of an ecosystem, data must be collected and analyzed. A model would also allow scientists to make predictions about the future of the ecosystem.
2. RISK ANALYSES. Using this information obtained by scientific analyses, scientists predict the consequences of different types of environmental intervention. It is also essential to evaluate any negative effects associated with a plan of action.
3. PUBLIC EDUCATION. When it is possible to describe alternative courses of action, the public must be informed. This involves explaining the problem in understandable terms, presenting the alternative actions available, and explaining the probable costs and results of different choices.
4. )POLITICAL ACTION. The public, through its elected officials, selects and implements a course of action. Individuals can be influential at this stage by exercising their right to vote and by contacting their elected officials.
5. FOLLOW THROUGH. The results of any action should be carefully monitored to see if the environmental problem is being solved. There are two success stories involving the issue of pollution. The development of appropriate solutions world's environmental problems often rests partly on the shoulders of politicians, economists, bankers, scientists, and engineers. However, it is important not to lose sight of the key role often played by informed individuals. Two examples serve to illustrate the point.
1. THE NASHUA RIVER. Running through the heart of New England, the Nashua River was severely polluted by mills establish in Massachusetts in the early 1900s. When Marion Stoddart moved to a town along the river in 1962, she was appalled. Stoddart organized the Nashua River Cleanup Committee. The committee presented bottles of dirty river water to politician, spoke at town meetings, recruited business people to help finance a waste treatment plant, and began to clean garbage from the Nashua River banks. This citizen's campaign contributed to the passage of the Massachusetts Clean Water Act of 1966. Industrial dumping into the river is now banned, and the river has largely recovered.
2. LAKE WASHINGTON. Following World War II, this very large lake east of Seattle became surrounded by a ring of 10 suburbs, each with its own municipal sewage treatment plant. Between 1940 and 1953, these 10 municipal sewage plants discharged their treated outflow into the lake. Safe enough to drink, the outflow was believed to be harmless. Starting in the early 1940s, the combined daily discharge was 80 million liters (20 million gallons). In 1954, an ecology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, W.T. Edmondson, noted that his research students were reporting blue green algae growing in the lake. Such algae require an abundance of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus to grow. Because deep freshwater lakes like lake Washington usually lack these nutrients, the presence of the Algae is surprising. The researchers found that phosphates and nitrates in the sewage had been fertilizing the lake! Edmondson was alarmed and began a campaign in 1956 to educate public officials about danger. Bacteria decomposing the dead algae would soon deplete the lake's oxygen. This would kill all life in the lake, and it would never recover. After five years, as a direct result of his effort, joint municipal taxes financed the cleanup of Lake Washington with a massive trunk sewer that rings that lake and carries treated discharge far out into Puget Sound.
Today, through the efforts of many people, the lake is healthy, its waters clean and blue. In conclusion, choices that we make in our day-to-day activities can benefit the environment. We can help our environments through our involvements in environmental issues that need a responsible action to be taken. For example, newspaper, aluminum products, glass containers, and many plastic containers can be recycled. We are the authors of our environments, every decision that we make, we either lead to improvements or destruction.
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