America's Environmental Catastrophes

Complex Problems Assignment
In this class, we have explored many of America’s industrially provoked environmental catastrophes, such as the Cuyahoga River fires, the national depletion of bee populations, and the catastrophic death of citizens in Donora, Pennsylvania due to uninhabitable pollution. If we had not achieved the level of economic prosperity derived from our previous era of industrialization, the rehabilitation and conservation of these disaster sites would not be possible. Economic growth has allowed Americans to have the money and resources to focus on the environment and educate citizens on the importance of preserving nature. However, it took Americans nearly two centuries to reach such a comfortable economic position.

Environmental damage alone kills about 1.8 million people per year, 20% of whom are under the age of five (The Hidden Tragedy, 2015). This number is higher than the number of casualties caused by malnutrition and any other preventable disease combined (The Hidden Tragedy, 2015). Such high rates of fatality prove that there is a problem, specifically within industrializing nations. For example, a 2010 survey reported that in China alone, 1.2 million died prematurely from the effects of air and water pollution (Wong, 2013). That is equivalent to 25 million years of life lost that could have otherwise been dedicated to groundbreaking scientific advancements, literary masterpieces, and revolutionary social changes (Wong, 2013). Although the pollution responsible for these statistics comes from a multitude of factors, there are four main industries which are contributing to the destruction of the environment which we would like to focus on; farming, mining, sweatshops, and e-waste

While such a situation may be preferable for an international company, it is not profitable to the future of humanity (Spath, 2002). The conditions in sweatshops are, at the very least, unsavory. Children and adults, alike, are forced to work long, nearly profitless hours in confined quarters that resemble those of American factories in the 1800’s (Reporter, 2013). Unlike American factories, however, many of the sweatshops weren’t built on safe foundations. The Rana Plaza, a clothing factory built on swampy ground near Dhaka in esh is a prime example of shoddy workmanship (Buncombe, 2013). The factory collapsed recently, killing over a thousand workers. Instead of swooping in to repair the damage, the corporation responsible ignored the disaster and kept its focus on its other operating factories (Buncombe, 2013). Catastrophes like this are not only wasteful of human lives, but to raw materials. The land, the textiles, and the building materials all went to waste as the factory crumbled into the swamp. The collapse not only affected the mental and economic state of the area, but also the environmental (Buncombe,