00:01
This question is asking about sustainability, and it's asking, how can we become more sustainable? why would we want to become more sustainable? and then, of course, what are roadblocks that prevent us from doing so easily? and so sustainability is really important.
00:15
Obviously, considering what we've learned in this chapter, how humans have the ability to completely alter natural landscapes and ecosystems, we know that humans have the ability to degrade ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide.
00:29
And that's important to understand because some of the things that are critical to life on earth and for us to thrive on this planet are provided by ecosystems and these services.
00:39
So one really clear example of this is how plants provide oxygen and we use that oxygen to breathe.
00:46
Obviously there is an intrinsic value to us to have plants around.
00:50
So it's important that we start to try and increase our sustainability efforts in order to preserve these ecosystems so they can continue to provide resources and services that we need.
01:02
Now of course when we talk about sustainability there's a whole suite of different things that we could talk about but for the sake of simplicity we'll just focus on one specific area of sustainability and that'll be energy consumption.
01:14
So we know in modern society today we heavily rely on fossil fuels to provide our energy and this is kind of a double edge sword.
01:23
Fossil fuels are really good energy source for some reasons but also at the same time that can be an extremely bad energy resources for other reasons.
01:33
So let's talk about that...