In this committee, we’ll be working to protect two of our planet’s most valuable resources: the oceans and the forests. Both of these are critical to the continued survival of our world and our civilization, but both face a daunting array of threats and challenges.
Our planet is nicknamed the ‘blue marble’ for good reason; most of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, distributed throughout oceans, lakes, seas, glaciers and even underground. Despite the fact that most of us live on land, we depend very much on the oceans and their ecosystems for our survival. In addition to producing more than half of the oxygen we breathe, our oceans absorb 50 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere does, and are critical in regulating our climate and weather patterns. Our economies need the oceans too: over 90% of global trade involves marine transport, and hundreds of millions of jobs exist within sectors that are dependent on the oceans.
But our oceans are in danger. Direct pollution through oil spills, industrial waste and agricultural runoff endanger marine life as we know it; overfishing threatens to bring tens of thousands of species to extinction and unravel the global ecosystem at large; in the backdrop, the dangers of global warming and climate change loom ever greater.
Meanwhile, forests represent some of the most biodiverse and valuable ecosystems on the planet, but they are sensitive to a similar set of problems. The specter of climate change, and everything that comes with it, looms large: erratic temperature changes, natural disasters, droughts - our forests can’t adapt quickly enough to stave off these challenges by themselves.
But our forests face a more active threat, too: deforestation. Invasive ventures in service of mining and drilling interests, as well as the endless demands of commercial agriculture, are slowly eroding forests around the world, eradicating species by the thousands and threatening entire geographic regions. This causes a vicious cycle, since forests act as carbon sinks and global climatic regulators – when they are cut down and burned, more greenhouse gasses are released, accelerating climate change and leaving the planet with fewer defenses against it.
How are we to address these manifold threats? It’s up to you to decide.
