With the world’s population steadily increasing, our environmental issues are steadily changing. With this increase we are experiencing a loss of natural resources. Our forests are being torn down to meet the needs of growing cities. The reason for this is more demands for paper, wood, or even new land. With the help from everyone hopefully we can increase the demand to plant new trees. The environment is facing a crisis of all sorts of pollution: air, water, land, and noise.
Climate change, ozone depletion, over consumption, radioactive waste, over population, sea level rising, illegal mining, habitat destruction, species extinction. These environmental issues bring problems not only to the condition of the environment but the health and lives of its inhabitants as well. Land Issues Land pollution and desertification, due to a decrease in vegetation has left the planet unsuitable for human use. A large scale of deforestation and other human activities are rising. We have been improperly using soil, and doing a lot of hazardous waste disposal.
Instead of properly recycling our everyday household items, we are dumping them with our trash. With this over population, it is causing too much pollution. Land pollution is in results to dumping waste and other hazardous materials onto our precious soils. Basically water pollution is coming from us leaving things by beachside or by the rivers, and it flows into the ocean, also from debris coming from boats. To stop this pollution we need to save our environment. To do this we should plant more trees, plants and flowers. Instead of us dumping waist into our landfills we need to recycle.
Plant based insecticides should be used by farmers. Recycling and reusing waste is a good way to start preserving our lands and making the pollution stop. Instead of a lot of us car pooling when we are going places we tend to drive singly. To cut down this pollution, if we have someone that we work with that lives in the path we take to work, why not pick them up and give them a ride to work? We could also take the bus, or train, walk if you live real close, or ride your bike to work. Since the population is steadily increasing we should replant the trees that are being torn down, to make more space available.
We are hurting ourselves, even though these trees give us oxygen, shade and a place for our insects and animals to nest. Without these trees we are putting the precious animals and insects in danger, and possibly instinction. We are polluting our air by tearing down these trees and plants, and taking away our carbon monoxide by building more industries, and more vehicular traveling. So now all we have to do is cut down our traveling, and make different means of traveling, and by replanting our plants and trees. I have found a good way to give back. Instead of buying schools books, why not rent them out?
Well when you rent them you are recycling them and letting someone else use the same book and by doing this you can replant a tree every time you rent a book. This is a whole lot better than buying books that are using up our trees. About thirty percent of our planet is covered with forests. In 1990 to 2000 the forest was decreasing by twenty-two percent per year. Between 2000 and 2005 it decreased by eighteen percent. The forest plantation is increasing steadily. Natural disasters are also decreasing the size of our forests. Forest fires happen every year and it plays a major role in the decrease of our plants and trees.
People are cutting down our trees, to build upon the land for agriculture and infrastructure. We can increase our forest areas by planting more trees on empty land, and also expanding the forest that still exist today, that are abandoned. Global deforestation was estimated thirteen million acres per year during 1990 and 2005. South America has suffered the largest from 2000 to 2005 by losing 4. 3 million per year. Africa lost four million annually. Between the same years ten of our countries have estimated 8. 2 million per year (table 2. 5). Thirty-seven countries have a negative change rate of one percent per year.
Eighteen of our countries have a positive change rate of one percent per year. Water Issues We are polluting our water by the amount of waste we are throwing away. We should be recycling our bags, paper, plastic, etc. Instead we are throwing them away. Our household electronics should be properly recycled. The reason being is because, they contain hazardous fumes. When consumed around us, it causes more health problems. Televisions, radios, refrigerators, etc. should be properly disposed of. In research I was doing I recently found places that you can sell your cellular phones to, and get money for them.
We need to keep these items out of our landfills. They are crowding them up, and some materials are ending up in our waters and killing off our fish, and other beautiful sea creatures. Population growth is also hurting our water supply. Industries, and technology advances, are finding their way to our oceans, lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. Over loading of contaminants has resulted in the condition of the water quality to become bad. Phosphorous and nitrogen are also being put into our bodies of water. Fertilizers from agricultural farms are also being found in the waters, as well as industrial sewage water.
This is why we have water treatment facilities to help get rid of these chemicals, but it seems like it is not working right. Many cities have water treatment facilities but many of them are not working. Many of these cities have sewage facilities that utilize and runoff storm waters. Cities that have vulnerabilities flood because they do not have proper runoffs or facilities to manage the storm waters. With the rivers running into the oceans, it is making it bad for our freshwater fish, because whatever we put into our waters run into the ocean. This is where we get the pollution from.
Three million people die each year from contaminated water. We have to stop dumping unnecessary trash into our landfills because some of them are ending up in our water supply. I think it is best that we drink bottled water instead of tap water, because of the fact that, different chemicals are being dumped. Every minute the earth’s situation is worse. The bad part about it is that it appears to remain unnoticed, as it has reached the point that people have simply learned to live with these things. The greatest environmental concern that the world is facing today is more than just the natural disasters or from the earth’s depleted resources.
As the world’s population continues to grow, and increases their consumption, demand and production occurs. The problem has brought greater attention. The government has thought of thousands of ways to resolve this issue. Ground breaking inventions aimed at halting the effects of the man’s own work have been funded by the government. The effectiveness of some of these inventions is still undergoing observation and further research is still being conducted. The act of recycling and reusing has been promoted and advocated by the government for several years.
Pleas to minimize and avoid unnecessary use of unrecyclable products can be found everywhere, from billboards to television ads. The government can remind people to tone down their activities and become responsible for their actions but they can only do so much. People have their own free will and in the end, the decision of how to act is entirely up to them. With the hurricanes in Louisiana causing a dramatic change in our oceans and seafood in which most of us get from them; to the oil spill in 2010, it is causing bad situations for us. It polluted our waters.
A lot of people including my family were scared and hesitant of buying seafood from Louisiana since the hurricane devastated fishing grounds. I was hesitant, because of the thought that the fish, crawfish, squids, etc. we buy at the stores fed off of the deceased. With that thought in mind I could not eat seafood until I felt or heard that there was nothing to worry about. Now that we have an oil spill that caused another fishing disaster, it is hurting us again. Fisheries’ are being closed down. Since May 21st there has been both oil and gas leaking in the Gulf of Mexico.
Out of one million gallons leaked into our gulf and nine hundred and fifteen gallons was recovered. Four thousand barrels per day have been recovered. Back in 1980 the gulf had a record oil spill of one hundred and forty million gallons spilled.
References
- http://www. buzzle. com/articles/current-environmental-issues
- html http://www. buzzle. com/articles/global-environmental-issues
- html http://www. greenfacts. org/en/forests/index. htm#il1
- http://www. unep. or. jp/ietc/Issues/Freshwater. asp
- http://greenliving. lovetoknow. com/Land_Pollution
- http://www. currentenvironmentalissues. net/
