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Why is it important to balance personal, short-term benefits and society's long term welfare?**

=**Megan**= It is important to balance personal, short-term benefits and society's long term welfare because if we do things that are good for us in the short run, but bad for us in the long run, then we may be in frail health later. For example, if you eat one cookie, it may taste good, but if you eat lots and lots, you may feel sick. This is the same for the environment. Maybe if you first go somewhere by car, it might seem like a shorter time, but if it is close enough and you walk or bike instead, you get more exercise, and you can actually help the environment. I have also seen this effect in using antibacterial products when unnecessary. You might be killing most of the bacteria, but some are resistant, and can multiply into a large colony later on.

Use sparingly! You want CA-MRSA infections?

Wallace's comment to Megan: It would be helpful to enlighten on the rationale behind placing societies' welfare above personal benefit. It would be further helpful with citation of concrete examples (Preferably with pictures) to drive home the point!

=Wallace= As society is formed by a collection of many individuals, it is therefore essential to place society interest above that of every individual. Energy conservation, air pollution control, minimization of food waste and avoidance of pollution of water resources are some of the contributions (Adjustments in lifestyle) that could help in improving long term environmental conditions of the globe (Countries and societies). Resources saved as a result of every individual's effort can in fact be re- channeled into other meaningful and value adding projects for the societies' in return.

Responsible usage of water, for example; use of recycle water for watering of plants, helps to preserve our limited water resources globally.



Switching off room lights when we are away is a small act on our part. But, if every one does the same, the multiplying effect on energy saving would be tremendous.



=Coco= Comment to Wallace: I totally agree, you shouldn't be selfish and use up so much things! Remember the 3R's reduce reuse recycle!!!

I think that when you don't have any health problems, you should walk whenever possible. Instead of going in the elevator, pressing the buttons and wait, I think you would rather walk. The benefits of yours is just that you don't get tired. It wastes electricity and one day we are going to run out of it. The benefits seems more to stand in an elevator than walking up the stairs. Actually I think walking has more benefits because you get to exercise which make you healthy and you also won't waste energy. The sentences above may seem nothing related to bacteria but it does when I explain this. Instead of using the anti-bacteria products, you would rather just wash your hands. It seems to be better to use anti-bacteria things because it would be more clean but something bad would come up at the same time. The bad thing is that the bacteria that is weak would die but the stronger bacteria live. It seems totally fine but the stronger bacteria is immune. Nothing bad up to now but the bacteria that is immune produces more more bacterias that are immune. The bacterias would not react to the chemicals anymore. Your body gets weaker then weaker so it's just a short term benefit to use anti bacteria soap. It makes the society have lots of immune bacterias and chemicals would no longer work to them. More people would die.

Do not use it often since it's just a short term benefit, unless your body is weak. Soomin's Comment to Coco: I agree with you on what you said. People should really start using stairs instead of elevators, because it will save electricity. I also think it is important to use the antibacterial hand soap only if you really need to. A lot of people use antibacterial hand soap, and hand sanitizers They shouldn't use it that much, because it will only kill the weakest bacterias and the strongest bacteria will live. And these bacteria will start to reproduce, and they will be resistant to the chemical.

=Soomin= Soomin's Comment to Coco: I agree with you on what you said. People should really start using stairs instead of elevators, because it will save electricity. I also think it is important to use the antibacterial hand soap only if you really need to. A lot of people use antibacterial hand soap, and hand sanitizers They shouldn't use it that much, because it will only kill the weakest bacterias and the strongest bacteria will live. And these bacteria will start to reproduce, and they will be resistant to the chemical. It is important to balance personal, short-term benefits and society's long term welfare, because for example, I was scared of the dark so I turned on the light overnight. Well, to my personal, short-term benefit, I was not scared of the dark, and I could sleep well. However to the society's long term welfare, it wastes up electricity and power and it wastes energy. So if I keep doing this everyday, and if other people also turn on their lights over night, then one day, we might be running out of power. Another example is, I was very lazy, and I rode a car to go to my friend's house that is only 2 blocks away from my house. To my personal, short-term benefit, I took less time to go there by car than by walking, and also I saved my energy. However, to the society's long term welfare, it is not good. The gas and the fuel that is coming out of the car will affect the earth's environment, so one day, there will be a lot of air pollutions and chaos going on, and maybe it will be harder for us to breath in air. I chose this picture, because I wanted to tell that if you are going to go somewhere that is not a long distance, then my suggestion is to ride a bike, or a scooter, because if you ride a car, then it will cause air pollution, and it is bad for the environment, but if you ride a bike, you can exercise and it won't cause any air pollution and it won't affect the environment. Megan: True, but only use the stairs in places that you are 100 percent sure you are safe. Kidnappers sometimes like to take their victims on the stairs. So even if you feel only a little nervous when you use the stairs, STOP (but do this only if your nervousness is caused by fear of being abducted; if it is caused by fear of heights, keep going). Run to the nearest stairs exit and take the elevator. Safety is a long-term welfare too, right? Or consider this: if the stairs are right next to the escalators, then take them. But if they are dirty and located in a remote place in the mall, DON'T. I think it might actually take more time to go to a place that's close enough to walk to if you ride a car. It takes time to walk to the car, doesn't it? But overall, I agree with you.

=Jeremy=

I think it is important to balance short term benefits and long term welfare because what little things you are doing can destroy the world! When you are about to go to sleep and spot your computer still on, turn it off! If you don't turn it off it you will be wasting so much electricity and making a lot more pollution. Well you might think that only one computer closed wont make a difference, but it will. When billions of people do it all around the globe then you can see a obvious effect. Its just like turning the lights off when you are not using it.

Another thing that you can do is not use anti bacterial soap. When you use anti bacterial soap it might kill 99% of the bacteria but the 1% that survived might get genetic mutations that might grow stronger and will become resistant to your soap.

This is a picture that what mutated bacteria might look like :D



= = =Lian= Lian's comment to Coco: I agree with you when instead of using the elevator we should use the stairs because it is exercise and it does make us healthier but it's not like we just turn off the elevator because we want to walk up the stairs. Even if we don't use it we still waste energy because the elevator is still on and running.

Everyone should be thinking about what we'll we do when we start to run out of the essential materials we need to live life e.g. Oil and Oxygen. I think those are the most important because cities all over the world are using cars to travel to work, home, friends and relatives houses. Each time they use their car they are wasting oil and polluting the environment with those gases while they could ride their bike or even walk. But what are they going to do when we are getting sick from toxic gases and there is barely any oxygen in the world because we were polluting the Earth. We need to start not using vehicles only for emergences and save the forests and trees that supply us with oxygen.

Hong Beom
My comment to Lian: Nice job about saying oil! That's what I was trying to do! Yes, there are some people use their car to go to their friends house which are nearby. Also It would be better if you said deeper about forests and trees. Thus I am going to do that :)

It is important to balance personal, short-term benefits and society's long term welfare, because by doing that, we can save our natural environments a lot. Trees can be a nice example. People still cut too many trees for lots of things and people waste them too much. I saw many friends who uses one page of his/her notebook and leave one page and write on the next page and then throw it away. That is wasting half of a notebook. Because we waste too much wood made materials, we need to cut them more and kill the trees that makes oxygen. The one that we breathe in. Without it we all die....... To prevent this people have to stop wasting environmental sources and try to find ways to save our natural resources.

This picture shows a tree that is killed by our wasting skills (?). . . ..



Jeffrey
My comment to Hong Beom: It was good that you stayed on topic throughout your writing, about trees. And you told us a few ways on how to prevent the loss of so many trees. I really find the half notebook trick really interesting, but even when people know that, they don't care, and don't realize the impact on our green world. I liked all of the ideas and resources being preserved in the previous postings too, so I am left with nothing to write about.

It is important to balance personal, short-term benefits, and society's long term welfare. To do so, turn off your electricity when it's not needed, use the backs of paper, get off your car seat and walk, don't litter, don't wreck the air with your gasoline or smoke. I mean is that too much to ask? Why, yes it is, because I personally, honestly, would not feel guilty of wasting an hour of electricity, or I would not feel generous enough to use the back of a paper, when I have a whole notebook in front of me, and I KNOW I am too lazy to walk somewhere, when I can get a ride. These things benefit, and satisfy our needs, but maybe the Earth has some needs as well. This is why we selfish people need to change. I mean, I know I am doing wrong when I do it, but I just do it anyways. Like when I am walking around with my friends, and perhaps we are eating chips, and when we finish, we just throw it on the ground when a trash can is about 5 meters away. What if we could use a few muscles in our body and walk to that trash can, or walk a few blocks to get somewhere, or what if we preserved electricity? What if an entire town started doing this, the impact on the world would change, and maybe others will join. Save some trees, save some electricity, save some gas that is killing our Earth, and save the environment. The world/society needs these resources more than you do.

Our First Mission Objective: Keep Earth Happy. Megan: Where's the Smiley face?!  Back to Top = =