Millennium Ecosystem Assessment's Summary For Decision-Makers

Pollution is killing and harming wildlife in the united states and all around the world. Oil spills are very bad and have huge affects on wildlife, toxic metals like lead kill many animals each year, pesticides are thought to be good for crops but have bad affects on wildlife. All these factors have a huge toll on wildlife.

The link is to a report, titled Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, A Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The report covers ecosystem changes and how that is intertwined with humans and their well-being. The ecosystems of the earth are complex and have many variables. Human actions can have a significant impact on these ecosystems and the report aims to seeks and apply scientific analysis and reasoning to how human actions have and need to change to support these diverse ecosystems focusing on sustainability.

Species are disappearing at a rate of 100 times higher than if humans weren´t around. They get used to their environment, but we destroy them by cutting trees to make paper or built buildings, we liberate so much CO2 during fossil fuel burning, which affects the climate in which they

Scuba divers can damage reefs, uncontrolled fishing can cause a rapid decline in fish populations. clearing forests will reduce living space and increase competition between species, damming rivers can disrupt normal patterns and deprive species of water or a place to live, trash and pollution can put harmful chemicals into the environment. These chemicals can cause problems with reproduction or even kill species.

In an ever-expanding world where resource scarcity is discussed in side conversations and overpopulation is being combatted by concerned nations, worldwide struggle of equal allocation of vital resources persist. Biological resources and biodiversity in general are at the forefront of these concerns. Decreasing biodiversity does not just pose a problem for the plants and animals that are becoming increasingly endangered; individuals who have constructed their livelihood around the availability of such resources face dire circumstances as scarcity arises. The greater the variety of abundant plant and animal species present in the world, the greater the potential opportunity, opportunities such as medical discoveries and newfound scientific knowledge that increase the sustainability of life on Earth. However, tragedy of the commons, has led to overuse of biological resources across the globe, throwing the issue of sustainability into question. While species extinction is a natural process in the world ecosystem, the rate at which it has increased is not. In the past 65 million years the rate of extinction has gone from one to five species per year to roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times that rate (Diversity, 2013, pg. 1). This is no longer a matter of natural selection; this is a matter of ineffective resource regulation worldwide. Despite extensive amounts of environmental legislation actively in place, specie scarcity will continue to grow. The greatest challenge now

In an ever-expanding world where resource scarcity is discussed in side conversations and overpopulation is being combatted by concerned nations, worldwide struggle of equal allocation of vital resources persist. Biological resources and biodiversity in general are at the forefront of these concerns. Decreasing biodiversity does not just pose a problem for the plants and animals that are becoming increasingly endangered; individuals who have constructed their livelihood around the availability of such resources face dire circumstances as scarcity arises. The greater the variety of abundant plant and animal species present in the world, the greater the potential opportunity, opportunities such as medical discoveries and newfound scientific knowledge that increase the sustainability of life on Earth. However, tragedy of the commons, has led to overuse of biological resources across the globe, throwing the issue of sustainability into question. While species extinction is a natural process in the world ecosystem, the rate at which it has increased is not. In the past 65 million years the rate of extinction has gone from one to five species per year to roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times that rate (Diversity, 2013, pg. 1). This is no longer a matter of natural selection; this is a matter of ineffective resource regulation worldwide.

Policy- and decision-makers claim information about the causes of population declines which driving species on the brink of extinction (). However, it is pointed out that the causes of vulnerability remain unclear to explain the variation to the risk of extinction (). According to Reynolds (2003), vulnerability is determinate by both the decline of species population and the reduction of their geographical range. These two forms of vulnerability are affected by both species’ mortality and habitat loss, which are the causes of intrinsic biological traits, extrinsic human induced effects and stochastic factors that likely determine the population trends (). It is suggested that extinction risk is not distributed by chance between taxa,

Pollution affecting wildlife has harmed many animals in their natural habitat. This occurs because of human actions on the environment. Pollution is in every aspect of animals lives. Including, the air, water, and soil they need to live by. These problems continue to grow each and everyday. BBC News article “World wildlife 'falls by 58% in 40 years,” is a company responsible for gathering and broadcasting news and current affairs, suggests that, “Global wildlife populations have fallen by 58% since 1970” (Morelle). If pollution continues, these numbers will continue to increase. Wildlife populations could become extinct if no actions are taken to improve the environment.

According to http://wwf.panda.org/ Pollutants like oil, nitrogen, detergents, and phosphate can have a significant impact on an ecosystem. It can create chaos on an ecological balance by encouraging plant growth and killing fish. Fish would die because of the lack of oxygen due to the oxygen cycle stopping. 1 million water aquatic species are put at risk because of water pollution. This makes it hard for amphibians to reproduce because water pollution is killing off species before they can. Water pollution also affects coral reef reproduction. When pollutants enter the water they smother reefs. This can damage the algae in the reef and affect the speed and growth of the reef. When the algae is lost the coral starts to die. Once the coral starts

According to Larry Gilman, the leading cause of extinction is Homo sapiens impact on the environment. Human activities have been broken down into eighteen different categories, numbered based on their impact on the current endangerment risk. (Czech) Based on this list, the three activities that rank the highest are introduced, or invasive, species, urbanization, and agriculture. Other spots on the list are occupied by activities and structures that are so often used they are overlooked as harmful, such as roads, recreation and tourism, ranching, and water diversion so that humans have the water they need to drink and bathe. While seeming miniscule, small actions such as these alter habitats quickly, too fast for many animals to adapt to them. (Habitat) These activities have put 22, 784 species, nearly one-third of all known plant and animal species, at risk of extinction. (United) The conclusion that ecologists arrived at was that human lifestyles and the biodiversity of the biosphere simply cannot coexist. (Evans, Extinction)

) This occurs because of industrial waste dumped into rivers and other water bodies cause an imbalance in the water leading to severe contamination and death of aquatic species.(Pollution: Causes and Effects) Another form of water pollution is spraying insecticides, pesticides on plants pollutes the groundwater system and oil spills in the oceans have caused irreparable damage to the water bodies.(Pollution: Causes and Effects) Eutrophication, is caused by the daily activities that people do like washing clothes, utensils near lakes, ponds or rivers; this forces detergents to go into bodies of water which block sunlight from penetrating the surface of the water and this reduces the oxygen that animals can get and makes it uninhabitable for aquatic species.(Pollution: Causes and Effects) Water pollution does not only harms aquatic life but it can also contaminate the entire food chain and cause diseases like cholera, diarrhoea if water pollution continues.(Pollution: Causes and Effects) Water pollution can cause ecosystems to severely change or be destroyed.(Effects of Water Pollution) Nutrient pollution from upstreams often flow downhill and even travel miles into other larger water bodies and can affect the types of algae that grows, and this can affect fish and other aquatic animals by absorbing sunlight.(Effects of Water Pollution) “Naturally, the order of ecosystems in that water are affected negatively, as the destruction or introduction of any foreign organism alter

Many factors contribute to the downfall of the ecosystem. As studies show there has been many changes made to the ecosystem of the years. While looking at the great scheme of things, the changes have been negative and steadily declining with time. Among those factors, over-population would be one of the greatest contributors. The growth of the human population has continuously been on the rise. It has been predicted that it will increase even more throughout the years going from 7.2 billion to 9.6 billion (Gerland, et al. 2014). As the numbers of the human population increase the ecosystem is steadily declining because of the large demands of food and biofuels (Laurance, et al. 2014). Agriculture is best known as a

The continued growth of human populations and per capita consumption have resulted in unsustainable exploitation of the Earth’s biological diversity, exacerbated by climate change, ocean acidification and other anthropogenic environmental impacts. The ecosystems exploited, provide essential services, including material goods such as food and timber; cultural and recreational benefits as well as providing other functions necessary for climate regulation, flood control and nutrient cycling. The key pressures to biodiversity loss are overexploitation, invasive alien species, pollution, climate change and the degradation and fragmentation of habitats. However, there are many challenges that effect the management of these pressures as a result of social and economic needs and as a result, further scientific research is required in order to best identify the distribution and appropriate management schemes for different areas.

Water pollution is caused when it is contaminated by chemical or biological properties. Oil spills also affect the animals and birds' buoyancy in water. It not only hampers with their ability to adapt to temperature but if left exposed longer it will soon affect their visibility then often lead to the lungs which lead to death. The sewage usually causes a dense cover of algae over the water. This reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of the water causing the aquatic animals and plants lead to death. Being in this type of harmful water or consuming can lead to diarrhea, vomiting and intestinal problems.

Pollution being the most effective terminator for our environment, which effectively does its homework in four different modes viz. Air, water, soil/land and sound. Air pollution which is pretty prominent & has various incarnations. It’s arsenal include oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, particulates , Volatile organic compound, particulates etc. The emissions from the chimneys, exhausts & vehicles all contribute in tainting the air, the ballistic use of the aerosol cans, refrigerators, air conditioners has flooded the atmosphere with the CFSs which phagocytize the ozone layer, thereby making organisms more prone to the harmful UV radiations from the sun. The perpetuations of the release of oxides of Carbon especially Carbon dioxide has resulted in green house effect which has caused Global warming thereby increasing the average temperature of the earth. These can have severe repercussions of that of posing a threat to submerge small islands, drastically increasing the fraction of water; it could also strangle the living conditions for the polar bears, penguins and other Antarctic region animals. While the oxides of sulfur and nitrogen help in reducing the pH of water vapor in the atmosphere making it acidic resulting in acid rain. Smoke emitted combines with fog to form the venomous smog. All these are nocuous to the mankind. They