Cry Me A Dirty River: Environmental Ethics, Water Inequity, Politics, and the Poisoning of Our Aquatic Ecosystems

Abstract

From the outset, we (humans) must never ignore that the pollution of aquatic ecosystems is worse than we can imagine — worldwide — mainly because of greedy, political, and powerful corporate entities. Contrary to say about the obvious: We are not really the masters of our environments, because humans continue to contaminate and take from the earth without giving anything back. Meanwhile, we pollute many respective locations, particularly our oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams without giving it a second thought. Or so it seems. Of course, water is life and humans should not take this reality for granted. Moreover, we must keep in mind that there is also water inequity in minority communities across the planet. Therefore, the backlash toward polluters should be furious, because polluting our waters and aquatic ecosystems on a continuous basis — or year in and year out — will definitely have far-reaching, negative consequences. Unfortunately, efforts to prevent, protect, and/or clean-up our waters through government regulations have been undermined by conservative politicians, who are mostly in alliance with corporate/industrial polluters. It should be finally clear to most humans that we are not wrong to want to protect our aquatic ecosystems, as advocated by environmentalists. In the final analysis, it should be understood that it might not be such a daunting task to clean-up our different environments, particularly since we now recognize some of the pollution problems.