During the twentieth century the human population has grown by nearly 400% from 1.6 billion in 1900 to over 6 billion in the year 2000 (Haugen, sec.2). This expediential population growth has left humanity little time to equalize with nature, a fact which is starting to take a toll on the environment. Humanity continues to encroach and destroy the very thing that is keeping it alive, and has failed to yield at any of the clear signs that we are damaging the ecosystem. This models the behavior of viruses which are designated biosafety level 4, the highest level; these are viruses such as Smallpox, Ebola, Marburg, and Black Typhus. These viruses, behaving like humanity, have a 90% mortality rate (Bardi, sec.3). These …show more content…
Everyday our population grows and we eat away more of the Earth’s resources; However, we are doing more than just eating up resources we are actively polluting the elements which we survive on; such as water, and oxygen. This behavior is very similar to
Ebola; it kills the cells that are necessary to it survival, putting itself at risk by failing to leave enough resources for it survival, or enough time to acquire a new host. We are slowly killing our host; we have already caused irreversible damage to the environment. If we do not change this trend now we will have to face the reality that we are killing humanity’s ability to survive.
Humanity has already caused irreparable damage to the environment; we can see the effect of this all around us. In our quest to build bigger and better, we ignore the effect our actions will have down the road. For example during the expansion of Miami in the 1950s, 1,400 miles of canal, 150 spillways, and 16 pumping stations were constructed directly in the
Everglades to direct water towards the cities, and away from the Everglades. This effectively destroyed 50% of the Everglades and caused a massive depopulation of birds within the Glades
(Everglades, par.3). This damage is irreparable much of the peat and many of the trees that were destroyed takes centuries to grow back. But this
Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R. (2007). The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 36(8), 614-621.
Dr. Forsyth implements plenty of evidence as well as proven statistics to back up his outlook on these issues. The growth of human population is happening at an exponential rate, implying that in a short period of time population growth will double. “We find it difficult to comprehend exponential growth, but it may prove to be our fatal blind spot” [3]. When analysing the world’s population over a long period of time, it took roughly 19,000 years for the world’s population to go from 5million people to 500 million people in 1500 A.D. [4] With an estimated population of 7.5 billion people [5], for a period less than 1000 years, population increased more than 1500 times its size than it was in the 1500’s. In addition, on a more minute scale of time, in 1950 the world’s population was roughly 2.5 billion people [6] in merely 50 years the world’s population has tripled. With these statics, it is evident that the world’s population is increasing at an incomprehensive rate. With populations at their peak, overconsumption is another problem this world faces, as Dr. Forsyth affirms “humans consume far more than their fair share of the Earth’s natural productivity.”[7] Due to this over consumption of resources, there is a vast demand for cheap food which results in the clear cutting of large forest to generate room for new plantations of food. When doing so, humans destroy habitats that
We have stepped on nature’s toes too many times, and will eventually create irreversible damage. Progress is rightly addressed as a comfortable disease, where in all the impact on nature is ignored. Unfortunately mankind still has cannot contain his own doing, the damage control by implementing and using renewable sources of energy, more efficient cars, electronics are not the
Humans have understood the damages they are doing to their planet, and have overlooked the topic for some time. The time they thought they had to solve the problem is gone. Humans can not go back in time and reverse the things they discovered. Through advancement in technology they will find the path that will lead to their well-being. The human population needs to focus all efforts on discovering new energy sources, food sources, and space travel technology in order for the human race to continue to
Ebola hemorrhagic fever, also known as Ebola is a deadly disease that can be caused by one of the various types of Ebola viruses. Ebola affects primarily humans or nonhuman primates like chimpanzees or gorillas, but recent research has discovered that other animals such as dogs, antelopes, fruit bats, and pigs can be affected as well. It is believed that fruit bats are reservoir hosts to the virus and are the main method that the virus is transmitted to other beings. The virus is usually introduced to humans through blood, secretions, or organs or meat of animals that have been infected, but have not been thoroughly cooked or cleansed.
For those unaware, Earth remains a breeding ground for both life and death. To expound further, Earth contains both a predator and a prey. As a result, a fluctuation of food sources remain in the ecosystem. Moreover, these ecosystems remain contaminated with harmful and deadly bacteria. In recent years, humankind had remained the recipient of deadly bacterial diseases. Therefore, millions of people have died. In particular, diseases such as Ebola and Listeria remain some of the most harmful diseases. Although Ebola remained discovered in the 1970s, the virus has recently experienced a resurgence. As a result, the virus claimed the lives of thousands of people by contaminating their food sources.
Human activity since 1945 incite a significant change in the environment and causes climate change. Both J.R. McNeill and Peter Engelke in The Great Acceleration expose that humans exploit energy from alternative resources to survive and thrive. Their activity to gain these resources impel the extinction of biodiversity.
Ebola virus strikes fear into the hearts of many. Incidentally, this fear seems to be most prominent in certain subsets of the population, mainly manifesting in those living in the periphery or who are impoverished. Often the hardest hit areas are peripheral nations hampered by political turmoil, weak health systems, and who are lacking in human and infrastructural resources.
Rising temperatures and sea levels along with the growing amount of croplands that are becoming useless put our environment into unfavorable positions with bleak projected futures.
The Ebola virus is a strong, serious, fatal illness, which has a large impact on the population today. In 2013, an outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) quickly grew into an epidemic of exceptional magnitude. The virus killed ten times more people than all previous EVD outbreaks taken together. The presence of the disease in towns and villages of countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, made the lives of people who live there unbearable. The poor healthcare infrastructures and penetrable borders between these countries turned the outbreak into a big challenge. The virus spread through the world pretty fast, which created a ripple of fear. The number of humans infected with the disease rose rapidly and drastically in recent years.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a severe often fatal illness that causes bleeding and organ fatal illness that causes bleeding and organ failure. It was first discovered in 1976, in which is transmitted through blood contact and/or other bodily fluids; someone who has died and was infected by the virus; contaminated objects; and/or through invasive treatments (Eckes, 2016). There are many challenges and risks with the Ebola virus. Not only does it affect every human being but it is a bigger risk to those in the healthcare setting. When an individual contracts the virus or is exposed to the virus, he or she is watched for 21 days for signs and symptom. If an individual catches a fever or have other signs, he or she is immediately isolated, tested,
of its hand. It changed the way people lived their lives, and it increased the death rate. It was a time of panic and confusion. Ebola is a condition that can be very fatal, it has a big effect on people that have it or don't have it. It was so rapidly killing people the process to find a cure couldn't keep up at the time. The (Center of Disease Control) stated,“Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by a strain of ebola virus.” In other words, Ebola is a rare and deadly
Of the four strains, Ebola-Zaire is the most lethal form, with death rates as high as 90 per cent (Dobson, 2007). Due to its lethality, Ebola-Zaire would be the biological pathogen weapon selected for the attack. The symptoms of infection are: fever, chills and muscle aches. Usually about five days after becoming symptomatic, the infected person may develop a skin rash, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, sore throat, abdominal pain and diarrhea. More severe symptoms include: jaundice, severe weight loss, mental confusion, internal and external bleeding, shock, and multi-organ failure leading up to death (World Health Organization, 2015). The virus is transmitted person to person by contact with body fluids such as blood, tears, vomit, sweat or semen (CDC, 2015). A contaminated person is contagious once the carrier has developed a fever. Symptom onset can be from as soon as 2 days to as long as 21 days after contamination. Currently, there are no scanning or testing procedures available to test for the Ebola virus without laboratory tests. There are two test drugs to treat Ebola, but results are currently mixed (LINA, 2015). Studies in Africa, the locations of the first infections of three of the four Ebola virus types, have shown that common hospital sterilization (bleach) successfully kills the Ebola virus on exposed
industries are spewing chemicals in the air, water, and ground, and the disposal of waste in our
The Earth will soon not be able to sustain life if the population continues to escalate. With the constantly rising numbers of humans, vital resources