17th Lions International Youth Exchange Scholarship Essay Competition

日期: 18/02/2017

　
5E Lee Chun Hin, Certificate of Merit
　
The Race between Man and Machine and its Impacts on the Relationship between Man and Earth
　
　　Picture a scenario: all jobs on Earth are finished by the machine rather than human? Glimpsing through the newspaper, I notice that this becomes a reality - robots have been utilized for the delivery of the products in Amazon warehouses. Competing with machine, we are in the underdog position - man is replaced in labor market. If this is a race between turtle and rabbit, human is slower than turtle while machine is faster than rabbit. The change in relationship between turtles and the pathway - the Earth and us remains undiscussed but worth our attention. Is the race a boon or a bane? I am going to air my views over this environmental issue.
　
　　Inimical effects to the environment are two, with contaminating soil and water being the first and foremost. The higher the demand of new machine is, the larger amount of decrepit machine phrased out is. The skyrocketing electronic waste will not vanish into air and finally be transported to some developing countries, like Ghana. The uneducated locals having searched for useful substances with bare hands, no measure is taken to prevent the heavy metals or even poisonous chemicals inside the e-scrap from being exposed to air and flowing into soil during rain. An irreparable scar is left to the environment that the aquatic and terrestrial animals are dead of diseases, such as cancer, deformity and the like, in strength of heavy metals and poisonous chemicals. Food is insufficient insofar as many, if not all, residents suffer from starving. Worse still, they might well face the same predicament as animals - irredeemable damage to their health. What is worrying is that with the proliferation of e-scrap, the contamination is going to be more knotty and grave. When we cannot rely on the environment and the environment loses its vitality, the bond between human and the environment is irremediably devastated.
　
　　Developed countries bear the brunt of the contamination of e-waste while the whole world is enduring the legacy stemming from the soaring demand of the energy. The victory of machine in the race betokens that energy supplied to machine will hit a new high year after year. Fossil fuel is universally acknowledged to virtually run out in the 21st century, which energy demand is incredibly adding insult to injury. The greenhouse gases and acidic gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, are emitted exponentially in the process of generating more energy; therefore, the environmental problems like acid rain is escalating. Scientists are seeking the way out like developing renewable energy resource to meet with the demand. Despite reducing greenhouse gas emission, the renewable energy resource still brings destruction to our Earth. Biofuel is a case in point to illustrate it since so ubiquitous is the deforestation in Brazil to create more farmland for more sugar canes and corns be planted. All in all, human is bringing destruction to the Earth whatever methods of generating more energy are.
　
　　Every rose has thorns. The thorns on stem stand a great chance of traumatizing us when we are holding the rose. However, how can we go for the petals without being hurt?
　
Among a plethora of positive effects, one which we have no reason to brush aside is that human can capitalize on machine to protect animals and biodiversity. Gone are days when we could only patrol in the national parks and conversion areas. Given that a handful of managers cannot protect the animals all day, the effect of patrol was meant to be unworkable in thwarting illegitimate capturing and hunting animals. Nowadays, the duty of managers has an enormous change--- if GPS signal emitter is installed in animals and camera or drones monitor the parks in 24 hours, the managers will be alert to the position of the endangered animals and just need to patrol when hunters appear. Had the machine been used to safeguard animals, the tragedy of elephants in Congo would not have appeared. Thanks to the better protection and less human harassment to animals, animals live deliberately and are free from being hunted. In the end, the peaceful coexistence human and animals is not a dream.
　
　　When we have a closer scrutiny, so understandable is a fact that advanced technology cannot only provide a heaven for animals but also help us tackle the culprit of devastating the Earth --- worsening global warming. In the past, seldom could we use a scientific method to observe accurately how serious the global warming was. Nobody would take the lead to solve global warming and hope the global warming will turn a corner for better itself. In this day and age, with the advent of satellite and the monitoring stations in many countries, evidence and data are given for citizens and government to clarify the gravity of the global warming. Considering the extant global warming is bringing the Earth to the brink of death, all nations cannot watch this issue with folded arms under the pretext that global warming is exaggerated. Accord de Paris is a case in point to manifest that they take a U-turn to be more determined by working hand in hand to prevent Earth from being overheated. In the last resort, the advanced technology is the sine qua non of alleviating global warming. A cooler and more comfortable Earth can be built by human.
　
　　The race is going on but I am convinced that we have no way to win. For global warming to be lessened, the countries signing the Accord de Paris had better strive to their utmost for fulfilling their promises. For the contamination in developed countries to be solved, more resources should be allocated to them by the developing countries. For the increasing energy demand from machine to be offset, no country do not have obligation to promote energy conversion. The abovementioned suggestions are worthwhile, albeit strenuous, to be achieved. Only by doing so, roses with less thorns will grow along the pathway and turtle can enjoy walking on the pathway after the rush of rabbit.
　
　
Key sentences:
1. The uneducated locals having searched for useful substances with bare hands, no measure is taken to prevent the heavy metals or even poisonous chemicals inside the e-scrap from being exposed to air and flowing into soil during rain.
2. What is worrying is that with the proliferation of e-scrap, the contamination is going to be more knotty and grave.
3. Human is bringing destruction to the Earth whatever methods of generating more energy are.
4. Thanks to the better protection and less human harassment to animals, animals live deliberately and are free from being hunted. In the end, the peaceful coexistence human and animals is not a dream.
5. the advanced technology is the sine qua non of alleviating global warming. A cooler and more comfortable Earth can be built by human.
6. For the contamination in developed countries to be solved, more resources should be allocated to them by the developing countries.
7. For global warming to be lessened, the countries signing the Accord de Paris had better strive to their utmost for fulfilling their promises.
8. For the increasing energy demand from machine to be offset, no country do not have obligation to promote energy conversion.