Earth Stewardship: science for action to sustain the human-earth system

In my honest opinion, this paper was very heavy which made it confusing for me to comprehend so I think that I didn’t get as much out of this article as I should have or could have if it was written in simpler terms that I understood better. From what I could gatheer, this is what stood out to me the most in the article.

“People and nature have always been intertwined—people receive many services from ecosystems, and society, in turn, affects ecosystems, sometimes severe” (Earth Stewardship: science for action to sustain the human-earth system). I feel like this sentence is very true, we are intertwined with nature. Although I feel this is true, I think that we have a very negative effect on nature. We do not have a mutual relationship, it’s more like the relationship that a tick and a person has. We are just sucking the life out nature like a tick does to us. The effects that we have on nature may seem small when you think about the fertilizer you use on your lawn, but it spreads much bigger than that. Every person thinks that they’re only one person and they won’t make a big difference, but when millions of people are saying that, then it does.

I’m going to combine my last two quotes in one because they are linked to each other.” Meeting human needs without environmental degradation is more likely to occur when a broad spectrum of ecosystem services are sustained (Daily 1997, MEA 2005). These include the harvest of water, food, and fuel; the interactions among ecosystems that regulate water quality, climate, and spread of disturbance and disease; and the non-material spiritual, aesthetic, and cultural benefits that cause people to value nature and life.” (Earth Stewardship: science for action to sustain the human-earth system). I agree with both sentences too because it is true that until better methods are in effect, the environment will continue to suffer due to human needs. I think that fuel is the largest contributor, if we could better implement solar electricity into our daily lives then nature would be much better off. North Carolina has recently become one of the leading states that uses solar energy efficiently. If we can all incorporated ideas along the lines of this the planet won’t suffer from our needs as much.

 http://www.greenerideal.com/alternative-energy/0319-celebrating-sun-solar-energy-and-the-equinox/

Chapin, III, F. S., M. E. Power, S. T. A. Pickett, A. Freitag, J. A. Reynolds, R. B. Jackson, D. M. Lodge, C. Duke, S. L. Collins, A. G. Power, and A. Bartuska. 2011. Earth Stewardship: science for action to sustain the human-earth system. Ecosphere 2(8):art89. doi:10.1890/ES11-00166.1