The Impact of Humans on the Environment
The human population on the planet now tallies in at over 6 billion. Many experts believe this population may double in the next half-century, as expressed in A Special Moment in History by Bill McKibben. Humans are undoubtedly the 'rulers' of this earth, but we have not been good rulers. In fact in our years of monumental growth as a species, our relationship to our kingdom, the earth, can best be described as parasitic. A parasite is an organism that is dependent on another for its existence without making a useful or adequate return. It is not hard to see how well we fit this description. Unfortunately this definition is incomplete in our case. Not only
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Their families of two to three children consume the equivalent of 50 to 60 children in the Third World. This abnormal level of consumption leads to our problem of resource depletion. However, the biggest problem we face today is not that we are running out of resources by our wasteful ways, but that we are running out of places to safely dispose the waste products of our excessive consumption. The only entity that grows larger and faster than us, is our garbage, which recursively increases the magnitude of our litter problem.
Solid Waste has soared to astronomical proportions in today's world. It is the combination of Residential garbage and Industrial garbage (dwarfs Residential garbage). An average American produces 4 pounds of trash a day, of which a majority maybe non-biodegradable. Every year, The United States produces 200 million tons of garbage of which less than one quarter is recycled. Only ten percent of residential wastes are recovered through recycling due to lack of financial backing for recycling operations, the small size of markets for recycled products and toxic chemicals present in recyclable garbage.
Litter is the part of our solid waste that is in an inappropriate place such as a street, stream, playground, beach etc. Litter is everything from a
The average U.S. citizen emits about four pounds of municipal solid waste each day. While this number may seem insignificant, think about approximately four pounds multiplied by our current population of about 318.9 million, or the population of Earth, 7.125 billion. With this in mind, think about all of the other detrimental effects we are causing to our planet. Most humans are not concerned for our planet, nor do we care about other species inhabiting Earth, which may lead us to consider other ways of living, such as Nash’s idea of an island civilization.
Overpopulation, pollution, global warming, climate change, genetic modification, ocean acidification, water/soil pollution, deforestation, acid rain, and ozone depletion are among some of the main factors that have a negative impact on the planet. Overpopulation is one the most concerning environmental issues currently. Overpopulation is defined as the human population of a specific area exceeding the carrying capacity. Overpopulation can occur from an increase in births mainly or a decline in deaths. Also, other factors that affect overpopulation can be an increase in immigration or a depletion of resources. It was stated by the United Nations that the worth has a total carrying capacity of somewhere between 4 and 16 billion. Currently we hold over 7 billion humans on Earth. As of 2017 the UN has increased their population predictions to 9.8 billion by 2050 and up to 15 billion by 2100. Pollution we hear about every day.
What we are doing to stop burning fossil fuels and help the environment is everything we
In the span of 50 years, the population of humans on this planet have reached all-time highs and continue to rise and with this rise comes the effects of overpopulation. The planet cannot sustain so many people during such a short span of time. Not only is there a loss of space for new generations of humans to live on, but there has been an excessive use of natural resources before there is a chance to replenish them such as food, natural gases, and water. The problem of overpopulation seems to truly encompasses all other aspects of the factors leading to the sixth mass extinction such as habitat loss and global warming. The population must be feed and because of this, million upon millions of acres of land once inhabited by a whole ecosystem have been converted to farmland to provide food for the growing population. In addition, the increase in leads to an increase in waste and therein arises a problem: where to put the waste. In the United States alone, “4.39 pounds of trash per day and up to 56 tons of trash per year are created by the average person” Landfills seemed to be the perfect solution for this problem, however, over the years, “landfill managers have been emphasizing just how quickly they are running out of space. The more people there are on the planet, the more waste is being produced. Some of this waste is quite toxic, and even landfills which are
Littering is the act of carelessly throwing away or leaving rubbish lying around in public places (such as schools, parks, beaches etc.) rather than disposing it in the rubbish bins or wastepaper baskets provided. It is known that litter can be washed down storm drains during periods of heavy rainfall. Eventually, this litter will travel with the water into the local river or nearest ocean. As a result of this, aquatic animals may mistake the items of litter floating in the water as food and choke on them or get entangled in it. It is also known that litter is very dirty and has the potential to carry many germs. Animals that accidentally digest the disease-ridden rubbish may become carriers for a range of illnesses that have the capacity to harm the health of humans. Additionally, it has been recognised litter wastes natural resources. Whenever bottles or cans are discarded on the ground rather than being placed in recycling bins, more resources must be used to make even more bottles and cans from new materials.
Littering and pollution is everywhere. It hurts the environment about as much as it hurts us. Usually the trash and sewage that we humans let out eventually heads into the ocean, lakes, rivers, and into the food that we eat. The article, “Ocean Pollution is a Global Threat”, explains why litter is dangerous for sea animals themselves, “Plastic garbage, which decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food by marine animals”. Some of the fish and sea animals that we eat may sometimes confuse trash with food and are contaminated by dangerous chemicals. The contaminated fish later end up on our plates and later in our stomach. There are ways of preventing this though. Setting up advertisements on television and on billboards is a good way of getting the message out to people. Everyone
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
We have become a very wasteful society where it seems as if everything is disposable; as a society, we need to be conscious of just how much waste we produce and what we are able to do to reduce that amount to protect our environment.
Through the years, our planet has been negatively affected by anthropogenic activities. The Anthropocene has been thought of as a geological period where human activity has negatively impacted ecological systems on the planet. These harmful activities have led to, air pollution, soil degradation, and soil contamination in urban and suburban areas, by dangerous pollutants like heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (Kumar & Hundal, 2016). Soil and air pollution and other environmental issues and pressures will continue to be a problem as the world’s population rises in an urbanizing society. Now, more than ever, we must collectively work towards a good Anthropocene, which is essentially building sustainable systems that will mitigate the environmental harm already done to the planet and its people. A good Anthropocene will have positive impacts on the natural, built, and social environments.
14 billion pounds of trash is dumped in our oceans each year. Some humans dump trash or waste into the ocean instead of taking it to a landfill. It takes plastic 450 years for plastic to decompose. Many animals can die because they eat trash dumped in our oceans. When waste is dumped into the world’s oceans animals or even birds can get trapped in the waste, and possibly die. Some people might take their plastic to a recycling plant
Littering can be poisonous. It can get people very very sick too. That is because most litters happens most while in a car, or in public places. Some public places that littering happens are parks, football games, etc. A Lot of this has to do with laziness. People are just too lazy to throw away their trash in a trash can so germs can get spread everywhere. Kids about the age of 1 - 5 are usually curious enough to pick up trash in public places and get sick from germs. The most common trash that is usually just thrown on the ground in public places are : candy wrappers, beverage bottles, plastic bags, plastic utensils, straws, and cans.
The United States of America has come a long way since its inception. The development of homes, cars, technologies, goods, and services has evolved. Also, the way in which Americans consume has drastically changed. And with all these great things, came solid waste generation, and unfortunately not methods for disposing of it in an environmentally friendly manner. The United States is the top trash-producing country in the world at over 1,600 pounds per person per year. Although the U.S. accounts for 5% of the world’s population, it generates 40% of the world’s waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2010 “Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash and recycled and composted over 85 million tons of materials, resulting in 34.1 percent recycling rate. On average, each American generates about 4.43 pounds of waste each day. Only 1.51 pounds of that material were recycled and composed” (EPA, 2010).
I believe that the ways human beings behave can affect the environment in good and bad ways. The environment is a reflection of us and we are a reflection of the environment. Since everything is interconnected, it is a given that if there is something abnormal going on in the environment then it is because we are not doing things in harmony with the ecosystem. For example, Living in an urban setting like a city is very different than living in a suburban setting or rural setting. I believe the air quality is much different compared to both because there are factories and industrial companies in the urban environment and much more trees in the suburban/rural setting; In the major cities in the U.S for example, we can make that distinction. In
to be grown trees have to be cut down and I have explained the effects
Nearly everything that a human does is in response to the environment. Our lives are defined by what is around us and what we find in front of us, whether this means accepting, dealing with or changing it. This has been the pattern since primates first stood up and became Homo erectus, and has continued until we considered ourselves doubly wise. The shape of the land affected where humans moved. Weather was something with which to contend. Fire affected humans until they conquered it – and herein lies the core of the relationship. The earth affects humans, and humans affect it back, viewing characteristics and patterns as problems and challenges, and finding a solution.