This one is going to tie up all the final topics that I haven't fully addressed in other posts. They may be all combined into one post, but they are still very important.
Anthropocentrism: Humans think they control the world
Humans have developed the idea that we can twist the world however we like. Except this thought process justifies the massive damage we've done to the planet. And it can have huge rippling effects. We wipe out predators (for example wolves in North America). Then prey animals multiply out of control and eat all the plants, which changes the entire landscape. Plus there are no predators to take out the sick or weak animals, so all the prey populations are taken over by the sick and weak.
Or we suppress natural forest fires, which means that forest debris builds up. Then when a forest fire actually does get started, it takes off and is far more destructive that it would have been if there were frequent fires.
Because of the human superiority complex, treatment of non-humans can me truly horrendous. People abuse animals, or do horrible tests on them. Scientific testing on animals can lead to breakthroughs in medicine and such, but sometimes the levels of cruelty can be shocking. For example, rabbits were used to see how different substances would affect eyes. They'd pin the rabbits' eyes open and pour chemicals right onto their eyes. They couldn't blink them away for hours. Some behavioral experiments can cause animals to go crazy.
People also do cruel things like forcing animals to fight each other. Dog fighting, cock fighting, and bear fighting are only some examples.
While there are many good zoos, other "menageries" can be extremely cruel. People just want to wring all of them money they can out of other species. For example, tiger temples seem cool. You can go in and play with baby tigers and bottle feed them. You can walk adult tigers on leashes. And they're run by monks. How can that be bad? Well, these monks are no longer practicing what their gurus did. They will basically turn mother tigers into factory breeders, and steal their cubs from them. They also kill and sell the tigers once they grow up and are no longer cute. Moving on, in Japan I was unfortunate enough to run across a very bad zoo (Most of Japan was amazing, but this was shocking to me). The animals were in concrete and wire boxes, and they were in terrible shape (physically and mentally). And finally there are things like roadside zoos. They're not much different than the zoo I saw in Japan. But they're small and mobile, because they're illegal in the US. So if the authorities come, they want to pack up and move quickly. This sometimes means tying up and leaving animals behind to die, either of starvation of from the elements. Make sure you know what kind of place you're supporting before you give them any money.
The more humans are separated from nature, the worse this will become. How can people care about something if they've never experienced it? How many kids have seen where their food comes from? Food does not come from a grocery store. It comes from the earth.
If people learn about the planet and get outdoors to experience everything, they will have that desire to protect it. The more deeply we learn about it, the more we realize that we are a part of the planet, not ruling over it.
Overpopulation
There are far too many humans on the planet. The only reason so many humans can exist right now is because a huge number of people live in extreme poverty. If everyone lived to the standards of an average American, it would take several Earths to provide all of the needed resources.
It's less developed countries that tend to have the highest population growth. When children are likely to die young, people have more children. Plus in more developed countries, it takes a lot of resources to raise a kid (think of sending them through school/college and everything).
Educating and empowering women can have a huge impact on population growth. It gives them power over their own bodies so they're not used only to make babies. And of course improving the state of poor countries helps too.
Native People
We've been wiping out native cultures for a very long time. Those that haven't been wiped out have largely been forced to adhere to modern conventional societies.
But older cultures have a wealth of knowledge about the worlds they live in, and how to exist in those worlds. At least they did before we wiped them out. So much of their knowledge is lost forever.
The cultures that have overrun them are far less cooperative with the workings of the planet.
We've lost many old traditional cultures, and others are fading away. Luckily there are people trying desperately to keep them alive.
Environmental Justice
Environmental justice means that people in minority groups are stuck in the worst environmental situations.
Not just poor people, but specifically people of certain cultures.
Dirty, polluting factories are often planted in the backyards of minority neighborhoods. The loud, sometimes toxic facilities may be right next door from houses.
There are a few reasons for this. For example, there might be a language barrier which makes it difficult for them to understand the weird language of legal permits. Or maybe the "city planning meetings" are held far from their communities, and it's difficult for them to get across the city during the middle of a work day. And I think society finds it easier to pick on minority groups.
Invasive Species
Invasive species are animals or plants that humans have transferred to a new location, and then those species thrive and start to negatively impact that new location. There are infinite examples of invasive species, and they can have any number of impacts. They may kill or out-compete native wildlife, or they may hurt humans or our pets/gardens.
Sometimes people bring a new species in on purpose. Like when someone had the idea to bring to America all of the birds Shakespear wrote about. That lead to starlings taking over. Sometimes people introduce species that they hope to eat, only to find that no one wants to eat them.
Sometimes it's unintentional, like the strange shellfish that travel on boats and take over lakes.
When people try to get invasive species under control, sometimes it makes things worse. For example, people brought cane toads to Australia so they'd eat a certain bug. But that didn't happen. Instead cane toads have spread across much of the country. And cane toads are poisonous to native animals and human pets alike.
Humans could be considered the most extreme invasive species. Look how we've spread and disturbed so much of the planet already.
Waste
We waste so much. We have huge amounts of packaging for toys, appliances, and food. Much of our food is wasted. Old stuff is thrown away instead of repaired.
We also waste a lot of by-products. For example, natural gas is often found with other fossil fuels (like oil). Natural gas is very useful. But when they mine for oil, that natural gas is just burned away because it isn't worth as much.
Bycatch is another example. When people fish, a lot of the stuff they catch is not worth as much (or they're not allowed to sell it). Most of those animals end up dying on the decks of the ship, and are then thrown back overboard.
How can you use these themes?
Natural systems are very easy to mess up. It's easy to write about people tampering with things like weather and forests and water. We think we know how the planet works, yet every time we interfere, it has unforeseen consequences. Sometimes huge ones that could take centuries to fix. Since all things in nature are connected, wiping out one species can destroy an entire ecosystem.
Humans have tried to recreate their own enclosed habitats, and failed miserably. We really have no idea what we're doing.
Those in power seem to abuse groups that they consider to be beneath them. That may be minority groups, native people, or even animals. There are plenty of stories that can be about the abusers or the abused, or both.
For overpopulation, what do you think will happen when too many people are crammed onto our poor planet?
How could a minority community fight against companies that contaminate their homes?
What kinds of invasive species would be the worst? How would you fight against that?
What happens when we've run out of the planet's resources?
There are countless possibilities considering how many subjects this post covers.
Other stories that use these themes
Ishmael (Quinn) gets to the very root of the human superiority complex.
In Daja's book (Pierce), humans think they can control the cycles of nature - specifically forest fires. But when we interfere with natural cycles, it throws everything out of whack.
Oryx and Crake has a future with severe overpopulation. Their solution is to kill most of the humans. Yikes.
Inferno (Brown) has a different solution to overpopulation. They have a chemical that will render most humans sterile.
In Wall-E, when humans destroy the planet too much, they abandon it to live in outer space. The state of humans suffers from this move. But not as much as the planet has suffered.
Jurassic Park is an example of what happens when humans get overzealous about their supposed power over nature.
The anime series Future Boy Conan takes place in a future with a lot of junk left from the proceeding society. The people there go through old dumps and gather all the plastic wasted by the people of the past. It's very important for them. The people there also attempted to make their own enclosed ecosystem, but it didn't work.
Watership Down (Adams) shows you how rabbits feel when humans destroy their homes.
The 1967 Dr. Dolittle movie is about respecting animals.
Books like Hoot (Hiaasen) make you think of how cool things like a new pancake house can affect the little feathery animals living around us.
Once Upon a Forest is a cartoon about how a dangerous chemical leak affects the animals.
Pocahontas has a beautiful song about living in harmony with nature.
Tom Brown Jr's books are beautiful ways to learn about the skills and beliefs of American Indians.
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