BYRON L.

CHU Oral Communication SPEECH

Industrialization, Progress or Problem?

Did you know that when you compare the time from when humans started to
exist on this planet full of life to the age wherein our species were still entirely non-
existent and scale that whole timeline in a clock, then our age of existence would not
even reach 5 minutes. It would be easier for you to understand if I show you an image –
here. It was only when I saw from this perspective that I realized something bigger. And
this realization was how much humans had changed the world in such a short span of
time. Imagine – the earth is approximately 4 billion years old and humans only started to
exist around a few million years ago – you can easily see how much has changed since.
It is a fact that before our species began to flourish, everything was mostly natural and
nothing was ever artificial. Everything followed the flow of nature as all things should be.
But now, most of the ‘nature’ that had outweighed all else had already started to
decrease as artificiality increased. One example of this ‘change’ is industrialization.

Industrialization, by definition, is the development of industries in a country or

region on a wide scale. However, I also took the liberty into making a definition of my
own and that is – industrialization is the constant rate wherein new man-made objects
are being made. You can also probably refer to it as innovation; or as how most would
like to call it, “Changes for the better.”

Many people also associate this word to the term known as ‘progress.’ Yes, it is
progress since new things are being made in order to improve our way of living by
making things easier for us to do. But it is without a doubt that we also need to know the
disadvantages of industrialization. Sure, more stuff are being constantly made but we
also need to be aware of the consequences. It is known that in order to produce
something, another thing also has to be used. An example would be the skin or leather
of a certain animal – its coat would often be used to make exotic clothing; therefore,
making the material’s demand higher. Nature would often be sacrificed in order to make
something synthetic and that is the truth.

This industrialization isn’t always a good thing even if we see more of its benefits
compared to its downsides since we are also slowly destroying the balance of nature.
Unfortunately, not many people were even aware of this until the obvious signs had
started to show up. I believe that many were awoken and had already seen how
terrifying our situation really is due to what happened with the Amazon forest. It truly is
unfortunate and I believe that we could’ve done something in order to prevent what had
happened but we were all still too blind. Yes, change is inevitable as time also continues
to go in a single direction, but all things should also have balance. We must revise our
way of thinking that shall suit the world in which we live in now. We need to learn that
BYRON L. CHU Oral Communication SPEECH

balance is the most important aspect in order to maintain everything as it is now.

Otherwise, our world wouldn’t last.

Lastly, the ultimate solution to this contemporary problem that we are facing is
simpler than what you might think. And that is by simply learning how to be more
prudent and resourceful. And as the saying always goes, “Teamwork makes the dream
work.” Learn to work with one another as this makes thing 100 times easier. Everything
that we do affects the whole world in a way and we must also be aware of that. We also
need to maintain a good mentality on the issues that we are constantly facing
nowadays. It is required that we need to be more careful with our decisions since our
actions always have its consequences. As things continue to change, we must learn to
accept it all and embrace it. Industrialization is neither of the above as it is all part of the
nature of this world and the constant flow of change.