Document Type
Poster Session
Department
Leadership and Organizational Studies
Faculty Mentor
Elizabeth Guryunova, PhD
Abstract
There is a global threat of pollution that many scholars view as an epidemic. I intend to help solve this issue by examining whether or not people are taking productive steps to decrease global pollution and their own carbon footprint along the way. To answer this research question, this phenomenological study uses interviews as a method to acquire perspectives on how this global threat impacts people on an individual level and what that could mean for our future planet. Based on a review of scholarly literature, I hypothesized that even if humans are taking productive steps, pollution and its threat on society and nature will only continue to increase from previous years until the population growth begins to decrease, or until we can take productive steps to advance, regulate, enforce, advocate, and create more awareness to this massive threat. Interviews conducted with 10 New England residents revealed that humans are without a doubt taking proactive steps to decrease global pollution, but whether these steps are enough to matter on a larger scale is still yet to be decided. These findings provide an insight into unique perspectives of how this global threat impacts people on an individual level, how this could affect people at a cumulative level and what that could mean for our future planet.
Open Access?
1
Pollution: A Global Threat
There is a global threat of pollution that many scholars view as an epidemic. I intend to help solve this issue by examining whether or not people are taking productive steps to decrease global pollution and their own carbon footprint along the way. To answer this research question, this phenomenological study uses interviews as a method to acquire perspectives on how this global threat impacts people on an individual level and what that could mean for our future planet. Based on a review of scholarly literature, I hypothesized that even if humans are taking productive steps, pollution and its threat on society and nature will only continue to increase from previous years until the population growth begins to decrease, or until we can take productive steps to advance, regulate, enforce, advocate, and create more awareness to this massive threat. Interviews conducted with 10 New England residents revealed that humans are without a doubt taking proactive steps to decrease global pollution, but whether these steps are enough to matter on a larger scale is still yet to be decided. These findings provide an insight into unique perspectives of how this global threat impacts people on an individual level, how this could affect people at a cumulative level and what that could mean for our future planet.
