The variety of life on earth is commonly referred to as biodiversity. Almost every living creatures found on earth are inter-related to one another. Yet, human activities are causing massive extinctions and affecting the natural chain of life. Activities such as deforestation, industrialization, pollution, global warming are all caused due to adverse human activities. However, while we dominate this planet, we still need to preserve the diversity in wild life.
The main reason for environmental degradation is overpopulation. Though the population is increasing rapidly, the amounts of resources are not increasing. In near future, there will be food shortage and lack of clean drinking water. Scientists say that, 1 billion people are going to be hungry.
Reducing consumption is not possible since the population is already consuming the minimum amount of resources possible to sustain life. Some countries have already instituted family planning in order to decrease resource depletion. If the increase in human population is not controlled timely, then the existence of whole mankind is in grave danger.
Another principal cause of environmental degradation is deforestation. Due to the increasing population, forests are being cut-down for resources, settlement and agriculture. Trees are very important component of environment as they not only purify the air but also help in rainfall.
Forty percentage of arable land has already been damaged. While trees are being cut down for agricultural lands to feed the human population, over 50% of the grains around the world is used for animal feed or bio-fuel. Thus, it invites unprecedented consequences to mankind.
Similarly, recent changes in climate have already had significant impact on bio-diversity. Global warming is an important factor of environmental degradation. According to a research, the average temperature of last 15 years is the highest ever recorded.
The North Pole has lost thirty percent of its surface area in 30 years. Due to adverse human activities and technological advancement, the environment is being degraded in a more severe way. The emission of harmful gases, fertilizers, deforestation and uncontrolled use of resources has eventually led to the change in climate. Almost 80% of snow from Mt. Kilimanjaro has already disappeared. Polar bears are on the verge of extinction. Dead Sea’s level goes down by over 1 meter per year. If this goes on, then we would probably have at least 200 million climate refugees by the year 2050.
Thus, many plants and animals are facing extinction, lands are getting eroded day by day and desertification has increased. Pollution has increased due to which green cover is reducing day by day. These pollution viz. sound, vehicle and industrial pollutions are causing concern to the existence of human beings. Modern gadgets like refrigerators and vehicles are one of the causes for pollution. As a result, Carbon dioxide content in the air has increased which has ultimately given rise to global warming.
Human beings have changed the billion year’s old legacy within just few years. We still need to preserve the bio-diversity while we dominate this world.
The environment that surrounds your family matters, especially for a child. The family environment plays important roles, which has great effects on children for the long run. Therefore, it’s no doubt that creating an environment-friendly home is necessary. A green family that is harmonious family considers lifestyle, contributing to children to grow and thrive.
What should we do in order to create such an environment-friendly home? First and foremost, being environment friendly is to make a list the top fifteen items that you use in your home, which is alternated by environment-friendly items. A good case in point is using herbal and pollution-free shampoo instead of the chemical one. This will dramatically change extent an environmentally damaging footprint you leave behind in your daily life to a large extent. Secondly, make changes to your energy usage. With the trend of low carbon society, it is our responsibility to put the advocating into real life. After charging cell phones, every family member remembers to unplug. Appliances, such as fridge, wash machine, TV, had better be turned off if out of use. A majority of Children like to imitate adult. Good habits will be formed when they grow up. Thirdly, for those who are serious about environmentenvironment friendly products and lifestyles, there is even more that you can do. In daily life, living garbage be taken note to classify. Some materials should be recycling. A good lesson will be learned that different garbage put into different color dustbin by your children. Their curiosity will attract them to ask parents about common sense of classification of garbage. Lastly, keeping pets, if you like, is a creative way. Animal is our human being’s friends since the ancient times. Compassion and love trend to be strengthened by cultivating pets. With animal’s companion in the childhood, a child will have a more harmonious relationship with the nature.
The terms “global warming” and “green energy” may sound familiar to most people but how many actually know the truth behind these words. The truth is that the way scientists define global warming and the way the of media presence is totally different. Political pundits tend to twist the facts around and say that there is association with heat waves, droughts, and other weathering processes, while scientists deal with thermal inertia and feedback loops. Where there is money to made the media will try to juice as much out of the public as they possibly can. Research shows the following:
“Various polls indicated that only about 40 percent of U.S. citizens subscribed to the theory of evolution, about 20 percent insisted that the sun revolved around the Earth, one-half believed that human beings coexisted with the dinosaurs, and only 13 percent could correctly define the word molecule.”
The information in this finding is enough to get our attention. People believe what they want to believe, the less they know the less they can get involved. Individual input is important because there is just so much to how private companies can help, “cap and trade” and the carbon tax isn’t enough to make major cutbacks in resource consumption.
Feedback loops has its positive and negative. Positive feedback loops deal with increased progression of a process being repeated over and over. An example of positive feedback is the melting of glacier ice in the Arctic. One purpose ice serves is reflecting sunlight. The ratio of ice over seawater in a given area is called surface albedo. As the planet heats up, the surface albedo decrease, the ice melts and less sunlight is reflected by the ice. The sunlight is then absorbed by the sea, thus heating up the water. As the water heats up more ice melts and this accelerates this process over time. Arctic ice also contains freshwater and a number of greenhouse gases trapped for millions of years. When the ice melts, these greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere causing more negative impact on the environment. Negative feedback is the total opposite, as time progresses the situation regresses.
What people may not know is that even though the ice in the Arctic are melting, more ice is forming in theAntarctic region. This sets off the balance of many things such as the ratio of freshwater to seawater, the Northeast and Southwest trade winds(causing the Equator to be hotter than normal), and the ocean current patterns(North Atlantic Grye, and South Atlantic Grye). On a larger scale, this offsets global annual phenomenons such as El Nino and El Nina, and explains the influx of weather disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes that has been happening recently around the Atlantic region. The problem that really worries scientists is that normally it takes thousands of years for the climate to change, but in less than 100 years the world has seen changes comparable with time periods such as the Ice Age.
It is a fact that the Earth has survive many types of weather since it was formed, extreme heat as well as extreme cold. The uncertainty is will humans withstand such changes. Many people use this uncertainty as an excuse claiming the problem is on a too large of a scale for them to do anything about it. They are obviously wrong, it is the mentality of the public as a whole that has led to little or no effort being used to reverse the process. If each individual believes that they can’t do anything about it, then the outcome is as they predicted but with public awareness and support, such beliefs could be pushed out of existence.
Indeed, global warming is not the only thing going on out there, what about our quest for finite resources? Our whole economy is in shambles, its all just a big Ponzi scheme that is inevitability to collapse. We sap on resources to make our big profits at the cost of future generations, but what happens when the tank is depleted, the forest deserted, the last piece of coal mined from the Earth. When the oil runs out what will make the plastic that holds the water of our water bottles and the tires for our cars. No matter how one may pray that this day never comes, but I assure you it will come it is what will we do when that happens.
What is all the talk about ethanol, it takes more energy burning fossil fuels making it than we get out of using it. Electric cars is such a big topic nowadays but not enough is to be done for the source of the problem, and that is where the electricity coming from.
Fossil fuels of course.
What can we do as readers do about this? A lot more than you may think.
Education is a big thing, we must reach out to the public and gain their support, and perhaps the government may push for stricter limitations on fossil fuel consumption and invest money into make renewable resources more efficient. China is currently making a big push for wind power, as this may worry the U.S, we can also push for increased hydro-powered ,geo-thermal powered , wave-power, hydrogen cell powered, and solar powered sources.
