Eco/275 Week 4 Ecology Research Paper

The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About

Tons of waste is put in our environment every year harming our planet. In florida alone 32,589,513 tons of waste is dumped only 13,809,704 of that was recycled in 2015.(FDEP) Many schools don't teach about the harm this does on the environment and as we continue to increase waste we need to drastically increase the amount recycled. To achieve this goal a program should be set up to Teach about reuse, reduce, and recycle. Have kids plant trees in your community or coordinate a paper drive. This program would be called Ecology day.

An article “Anthropocene: Humanity has changed the Earth so much that it has entered a new epoch, scientists conclude “by Andrew Griffin on UK Independent news on Friday 8 January 2016, pointed out what happens to the Earth and how humans affect the environment.

The specific challenges of such a life to animals are food resources and healthy body. To survive, an animal has to ingest and digest foods in order to provide energy for daily activities. Moreover, on the quality aspect of animals’ life, animals have to live healthy without illness.

Anthropocene refers to the start of a time where human influence on the earth’s ecological and geological state rapidly increased. This rapid increase is known as the “Great Acceleration” which takes place from the mid-20th century and continues on today. A push was made to distinguish this time from the previous epoch known as the Holocene period because of the dramatic impact that humanity is now having on the environment. The Anthropocene period is characteristically different because the changes in the ecological environment are being rapidly affected and changed due to human activity not purely natural means. While humans were active during the Holocene period they did not begin to affect their environment

One clear factor are runoffs.Clearly this is one major issue that needs to addressed since we keep having to address this issue whenever we discuss our oceans. Dangerous chemicals are reaching our water impacting the ecosystem at each level. Sea Otters were once near-extinction by the early 20th century due human hunting. Since then we have put in place numerous acts to prevent this from occurring. Although these changes helped bring populations numer back up we are witnessing a weather rapid decline once more in their population due to the number of kale farms decreasing. The reason for kale’s decrease seems to be the warming of our ocean seas. Both these issues are recurring whenever we discuss our ocean's decline.

Several man-made threats have accelerated extinction rates across the globe, such as global warming, pollution, and introduced species. Current extinction rates

Despite their importance, both to the natural environment and people diseases, habitat degradation and unsustainable agriculture, have placed substantial burdens

Just as how there are various factors that lead to the emergence of effective altruism, there are also different causes that led to the Anthropocene. Scientists generally agree that the Anthropocene was the result of human actions interfering with the Earth systems for most of human history (Ruddiman, Ellis, Kaplan, & Fuller, 2015, p. 38). When did the Anthropocene start and which destructive human actions brought about this new, proposed epoch?

The Anthropocene is a term used in recent times to give an overarching term for the destructive and environment changing behaviour of humans. As Baskin (2014:9) puts it, an ‘’...idea which posits that the human species is now the dominant Earth-shaping force.’’

• habitat change due to unnatural temperature changes in the environment (such as with global warming).

The development of civilisation has incorporated increased rates of habitat destruction, overexploitation, pollution and the introduction invasive species. Overpopulation is the primal cause for all human induced extinction events.

Ecology is the tool used to better understand the causes, effects, and potential mitigation of environmental problems.

About 200 years ago, a wave of modernization and industrialization began and spread across the planet. A few decades later, from the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, global changes were measurable. This marked the beginning of the “Anthropocene”, and era where human activity became a force affecting the Earth’s natural cycles.

The health of the earth degrades with the destructive activity of human beings. A recent study by a group of scientists looked at twenty four different services that the earth’s ecosystems provide for humans, ecosystem services, and found that fifteen of them are in need of desperate help (Gazette 31 March 2005). These services are vital to the survival of both human and nonhuman life and include filtering water and providing nutrient rich soils and ocean waters. Many of the members of these various ecosystems are also decreasing in numbers. In a British survey of bird populations found that in the 200 birds of Britain tracked there was about a 54% population decrease between the 1968-1971 tacking period and the 1988-1991 tacking period. In two other surveys of 254 native plant species from the same area there was a decrease of about 28% during the past 40 years. Humans are pushing the sixth mass extinction (Gazette March 19, 2004).