RESHAPING ENVIRONMENTS WEEK 2 REFLECTIVE JOURNAL NAME: ZEYU LI (VICKY) STUDENT NUMBER: 634091
SEMESTER 1
2014
SUSTAINABILITY This week’s readings and lecture are talking about sustainability. Like the definition provided in the lecture, sustainability is contested and context dependent. The meaning of sustainability has changed over time, and it can shaped by different backgrounds and experiences. For example, for me, I think sustainability is that human and environments are in a balanced position. The main question I got from this topic is whether human are the contributors of a sustainable society. Like Easter Island, this island was in the balanced state before human arrived, and after that, although they developed a society, it disappeared by the improper actions due to human. To me, human is the main course of the collapse so they’re the biggest contributors of a unsustainable society although the technology today can solve a lot of problems, they will still bring negative impacts and destroy the balance. Similarly, in my city, there’s a small river near my home, before I just moved there, the river is very clean because the government took a lot of time to solve the pollution. However, in the next few years, this area became the main aim of the development, plenty of skyscrapers have been built and most green areas are took away; the river is re-polluted by concretes, waste water and many other man-made materials and living consumption. Therefore, human can destroy the sustainability although they can use technology to solved problems if they take inappropriate planning. After considering this question, I think it’s really important to take right action to achieve sustainability, which is make our system in a balanced state rather than put benefit in the first position.