Citation# 1: Recycling for Sustainability, by John Ikerd, 

http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/Nebraska-recycling.htm

Summary: According to the article, Sustainability is the widest and most encompassing definition of environmental preservation. It is not just about preserving the natural environment’s health and production, but also about preserving the social environment. Nature, society, and the economy are all intertwined in the biosphere’s holistic reality. Sustainability is fundamentally about energy since it is energy that keeps human existence on the planet going. Both physical and social energies are dispersed, disorganized, and depleted under capitalist systems. All of this necessitates the use of energy that is no longer accessible for other purposes. Investing in environmental protection or natural resource conservation makes little financial sense. Maintaining a productive human society necessitates the expenditure of social energy, which is not accessible for other purposes. This is what social entropy is all about, and it’s unavoidable.

            Recycling is a universal way to put some of one’s energy to good use for the benefit of others. People who recycle on their own, without being a part of any organized group, are contributing to strengthen society. Recycling may help the economy, although not always in the manner that most recyclers believe. In nature, the true economic benefits of recycling are long-term rather than short-term. Beyond any realistic economic planning horizon, they will accumulate economic advantages for future generations. The sake of sustainability entails adopting a more enlightened view of self-interest. Recycling helps to our pleasure and well-being as well as our economic riches.

Reflection: I picked this article because it helps me connect to everything I was thinking about. It was very interesting because I knew recycling is a major part of helping our environment, however, this other help me see it’s more than that. By recycling, I’ll prevent natural resource depletion in order to maintain ecological equilibrium. It’s all about maintaining energy so that well have balance.

Quotation: “Today’s global economy is critically dependent on fossil energy, and we don’t have enough energy left to waste. The tremendous material progress of the industrial era has been possible only because of the relative abundance of fossil energy. However, the days of plentiful, low-cost fossil energy are nearing an end, if not already over”

Citation# 2: Why People Harm the Environment Although They Try to Treat It Well: An Evolutionary-Cognitive Perspective on Climate Compensation by Patrik Sorqvist and Linda langeborg,  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00348/full

Summary: In this article, they talked about When people strive to be environmentally conscious, they frequently end up causing more harm to the environment. As a result, ideas related to “climate compensation” may be found in both local and global decision-making. The goal of this work is to lay forth the evolutionary foundations of psychology that support attempts to compensate for unsustainable conduct. Due to the huge temporal and geographical distances, the link between conduct and consequence in the context of climate change and environmental effects is unclear. As a result, individuals are unprepared to face the difficulties of climate change. There are several evolutionary adaptations and cognitive biases that contribute to people’s failure to appropriately perceive human-environmental interactions. People, for example, prefer their own group over other groups and instant benefits over delayed rewards, which stymies the transition to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Reflection: I agree with the article Because people are the primary cause of global warming, we can band together and make a difference in the health of the planet. All the moment we do and the action we take has a major effect on the environment. In addition, base on the article this project made me see that it’s not all over, but it depends on us. what is being done to protect our environment? Various contributions are being made to help support the necessary modifications. Planting trees and cleaning our oceans of garbage and oil spills, for example, would be a great start for the community.

Quotation: Moral licensing has also been found in the context of collaborative environmental efforts. They believe that When individuals feel a negative imbalance as a result of doing something damaging to the environment, they may actively seek out a chance to restore the balance by doing something helpful for the environment. People are more inclined to join an environmental petition after viewing proof of human-caused environmental degradation, for example. Allowing give and take transactions to balance each other out in social trade is an effective way to sustain well-functioning cooperation. The same balancing heuristic, on the other hand, is inapplicable to “environmentally friendly” and “damaging” behaviors. People don’t tend to act on something unless its now, by that time I’ll be too late. Unless we as a people decided to make the change now it might be too late.

Citation# 3: Responding to Climate Change, https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/

Summary: This article mostly focuses on mitigation and adaptation. Climate change mitigation entails lowering the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Adaptation is Adapting to living in a changing environment entails adjusting the current or anticipated future climate. Climate change is a worldwide issue that will affect people on a local level for decades, if not millennia. Carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that has fueled current global warming, may last hundreds of years in the atmosphere. Global warming and climate change will continue to affect future generations even if we cease generating all greenhouse gases today. Because we are already committed to some degree of climate change. Also, they talked about NASA.

The mission of NASA is to offer the reliable scientific facts needed to comprehend climate change. According to NASA, it is not the agency’s duty to define climate policy or prescribe specific policies or remedies to climate change. Since 1992, the Jason-3, Jason-2/OSTM Surface Topography Mission, and Jason-1 flights have all recorded rising sea levels. The ultimate objective is to achieve breakthroughs in quantifying, interpreting, and forecasting global carbon sources and sinks. This might have significant implications for how our world responds to rising emissions and/or climate change initiatives.

Reflection: I agree with the article because as time goes everything is changing for the better or worst. It’s best to adapt to the environment, as change occurs you follow in other to keep, if not try to be ahead. While climate change is a global problem, it has a local impact. As a result, cities, and municipalities are at the forefront of adaptation. The more rapidly the climate changes, the more difficult it may become. Governments at all levels are improving their adaptation skills, according to the 2014 report on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.

Quotation: “Climate change is starting to be factored into a variety of development plans: how to manage the increasingly extreme disasters we are seeing and their associated risks, how to protect coastlines and deal with sea-level encroachment, how to best manage land and forests, how to deal with and plan for reduced water availability, how to develop resilient crop varieties and how to protect energy and public infrastructure”.