Responce 1

1. What, in your mind, is the most important global environmental problem? Why?
2. What does it mean to live in an "environmentally friendly" way? Is this something that you try to do in your own life? Or to foster in the lives of others?

Clearly the most important issue in global environmental politics is global climate change and its causes. Climate change has the most encompassing affect on both humans and the worlds natural ecology. It is because of climate change that we are facing such a large loss of biodiversity in our world. Where the rainforests and coral reefs center of biological diversity of the planet are being undermined by sifts in weather patterns and bleaching brought about by warming oceans. The collapse of biodiversity in our world is not only disheartening because of its effects on flora and fauna. A decline in biodiversity also undercuts human ingenuity to mimic nature in the creation of new products and solutions.

Further climate change has a direct affect on human being as sea levels rise people all over the world in rich and poor counties will being to be displaced by the sea. Great cities and centuries of culture will be lost if we continue to emit GHG and emphasize the Green House Effect. Sea level rise does not only effect the coastline. It can also have effects on the aquifers of coastal cities before cities begin clamoring for higher sea walls. Salt penetration into aqafers only undercuts human ability to live in coastal regions with little rainfall.

Living in an environmentally friendly way can mean different things to different people. However, the overall consensus among people is that it signifies living in a way which you try to minimalize the impact you will have on the environment. Through the reduction of consumption
patterns. For Example I try to live as environmentally conscious as possible by,trying to make my goods last as long as possible, recycling, conserving energy and limiting my traveling.

I feel that people should lead by example. However the failure to lead has been the largest failure of the developed world since the passage of the Kyoto Protocol. One of the greatest faults of the Protocol was the lack of investment by the "leaders" in Clean Development Mechanism in the Third World. If Developed countries are now willing to follow their own green rhetoric, especially in the United States. Then they should promote a less carbon intense lifestyle in the developing world. where there are much larger populations, which can have even greater environmental impact then even those developed ones.