The earth is 4.543 billion years old, our ancestors are estimated to date back to six million years, with modern human life dating back to 200,000 years ago (Reed). The effects of humanity on earth can be displayed by the increase of pollution within our ecosphere. As our population continues to increase, so does our carbon footprint upon the earth. On a more localized scale, the Central Valley is a mecca of poor air quality and elevating pollution levels. An assortment of environmental factors increases these pollution levels. The Central Valley is a hub for the climate, natural, industrial, mobile, and agricultural components that equate to this growing pollution problem.
“The role of humans in the deforestation of the world's forests is considerable and extensive.” Says Rhett Butler. Humans affect the rainforest many inadequate ways, such as deforestation, and wildfires. Deforestation
“One hundred and fifty years ago, the monster began, this country had become a place of industry. Factories grew on the landscape like weeds. Trees fell, fields were up-ended, rivers blackened. The sky choked on smoke and ash, and the people did, too, spending their days coughing and itching, their eyes turned forever toward the ground. Villages grew into town, towns into cities. And people began to live on the earth rather than within it.” ― Patrick Ness.
“Modern humans deeply influence the form and function of the ecosphere” (Hugget et al: 2004). During the twentieth century alone the world’s population increased from 1.65 billion to 6 billion and just now the worlds population stands at over seven billion. The rapid growth rate of the human population means that there are now many environmental problems such as pollution, deforestation, food and energy shortages, waste, water storage and climate change. These problems have meant
We, as humans, have always had a prevalent impact on our environment and our world as a whole. Not only has our societal presence caused negative global impact, but our expedited population growth has also had an extreme physical impact on earth. An example of the effects of our extensiveness is, “…86% of the world 's resources are consumed by only the wealthiest one fifth of humanity…” (globalissues.org). this means that 4/5ths of the planet already has limited access to resources that are naturally found on earth. In addition to our excessive consumption of the earth natural resources, environmental degradation is the result of extreme pollution and wastes that have made their way into our atmosphere. Because of our severe impact on nature, it is crucial that we stop the accelerated deterioration of our environment by decreasing our misuse of earth’s natural resources, reducing the use of unnecessary technology in our environment and practicing more ecologically responsible lifestyles. This “can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations” (thrall.org).
In Section 1 of Simon Nicholson and Paul Wapner’s text, Species Unbound: Humanity’s Environmental Impact, the authors bring significant insights into how humanity is producing a negative impact on the environment. Partly because “seven billion people” coupled with an ever-growing population are consuming scarce resources such as wood for paper/furniture etc. at rates faster than regeneration which is leading to resource depletion (Nicholson and Wapner 2015, 9-10). Furthermore, other key sustainability challenges are climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels and biodiversity loss, to name a few. Thus, humans are a negative impact on the environment in terms of not sustaining the Earth's resources, life, climate, and so forth. Since this effect on the environment is so profound some believe we are living in the Anthropocene- in which humans have become the central force in reigning supremacy over earth’s changing environmental conditions and resource depletion (11-12). The author’s claim that one way in which humans are altering the
Did you know that cutting down trees as deforestation is a form of pollution? According to the article Top 10 Causes Of Environmental Damage, deforestation is the second most leading polutionizer in the world today. The first reason for pollution is the high amounts of gasses released into the atmosphere. These gasses are the main culprit for ozone holes and global warming, as they release Co2, So2, NH3, and many other harmful gasses. Among these two main culprits for harsh pollution comes with a lot of side effects from these human made disasters such as environmental pollution, environmental impact, and environmental disasters.
Deforestation is a concerning issue that has come about within the past decade that hasn’t been getting much attention. Deforestation is defined as the clearing or removal of a forest or group of trees where the land is not used for forest use afterwards. The land could be used for urbanization, farms, ranches, extra land, or anything that the country needs that piece of land for. Deforestation has become more common and the industry for it has increased rapidly. Although so many people have increased the amount of deforestation, they don’t realize the effects that it can bring upon the world and its environment. Deforestation not only affects the United States, but effects countries all over the world in multiple ways. Each way that
1. Population. Most problems of the environment come from population growth . In 1700 there were 625 million people in the world .In 1900 there were 1.6 billion , in 1950 2.5 billion , and in 1980 4.4 billion . In the year 2000 there will be 6.3 billion . More people need more water , more food, more wood, and more petroleum.
50 years of innovation and urbanization, we were blinded by the city lights and smokes that we do not seem to see the importance of taking good care of our environment, especially the nonrenewable sources. The consumers’ needs quickly became wants, and for the producers, wants simply mean profit, and profit is money. Money is everything to people nowadays. We would resort to everything that could provide us even the littlest amount of money, no matter what the repercussions would be, thus, the destroying of the resources. We are slowly killing the planet but we cannot see it because we are too busy trying to get things we believe we need. It is said that the earth’s weight is still the same as it was first created. Come to think of it, we do give and take with the nature, we take its resources, invent something useful that we consume, but we give it back as waste and
There is an estimated 18 million acres of forest land that is lost each year due to deforestation (Bradford, 2015). Why is this problematic for the world? I believe there are physical, logical, spiritual and moral reasons that this is a problem for humanity. A majority of the earth’s plants and animals live in our forests. By destroying their habitat, animals risk extinction and local populations that rely on the land for food and medicinal purposes face uncertainty of survival. Spiritually this is devastating to me personally. The natural beauty of our planet and animals is something I hold very dear. To think that my grandkids might inherit a world where they can no longer see such wonder and beauty is very sad. NASA predicts that if the current rate of deforestation continues, our rainforests might be completely gone in as
This report states that although it is important to meet the needs of humans, the needs must be satisfied in a sustainably conscious manner. For this to be achieved, direct effects of each human need must be critically analysed and understood. This paper aims to deliver this by identifying particular human actions that contribute to the global issue of deforestation.
The ecological footprint of the human race is only getting bigger and bigger as our population steadily increases. It is estimated that our population grows 1.1% each year and it doesn 't show a trace of slowing down (who.int). We have all hopefully heard the phrase “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” This phrase alone could help us gradually reduce our ecological footprint, but many poor countries don 't have governing systems that takes in and sorts plastic or paper products. Some environmentalists say that unless something drastically changes, humans are doomed in the future because of lack of resources. Some say that by then, humans will have sufficient technology to sustain ourselves and our large resource consuming population.
Pollution is the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. It is a major problem in America and as well as the world. Pollution not only damages the environment, but damages us also. It has cause many problems ranging from lung cancer to the greenhouse effect. It is all among us but we continue to live in our own filth. What is the reason behind this flawed logic? In this paper I will examine the problems and solutions for this issue.
Pollution has become a major issue over the years because it contaminates the Earth’s environment and affects human health. While some environmental pollution is a result of natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, most is caused by human activities. The increase of various types of pollution has made cancer pollutant more prevalent among the people, raising the risk of getting cancer. After being exposed to theses pollutants, the effects may be immediate or delayed. Some of the delayed effects, due to the exposure, can go unnoticed for many years. Another major issue that pollution creates is the tremendous cost for preventing and cleaning it up. However, we can not regulate the pollutants to the extent where there are no more possible