What
is pollution?
Pollution
of air, water and soil require millions of years to recoup. Industry and motor
vehicle exhaust are the number one pollutants. Heavy metals, nitrates and
plastic are toxins responsible for pollution. While water pollution is caused
by oil spill, acid rain, urban runoff; air pollution is caused by various gases
and toxins released by industries and factories and combustion of fossil fuels;
soil pollution is majorly caused by industrial waste that deprives soil from
essential nutrients.
One
of the environmental problems is global warming.Climate changes like global
warming is the result of human practices like emission of Greenhouse gases.
Global warming leads to rising temperatures of the oceans and the earth’
surface causing melting of polar ice caps, rise in sea levels and also
unnatural patterns of precipitation such as flash floods, excessive snow or
desertification.
Overpopulation
is also an essential problem for our earth. The population of the planet
is reaching unsustainable levels as it faces shortage of resources like water,
fuel and food. Population explosion in less developed and developing countries
is straining the already scarce resources. Intensive agriculture practiced to
produce food damages the environment through use of chemical fertilizer,
pesticides and insecticides.
Natural
resource depletion is another crucial current environmental problems. Fossil
fuel consumption results in emission of Greenhouse gases, which is responsible
for global warming and climate change. Globally, people are taking efforts to
shift to renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, biogas and geothermal
energy. The cost of installing the infrastructure and maintaining these sources
has plummeted in the recent years.
The
over consumption of resources and creation of plastics are creating a global
crisis of waste disposal. Developed countries are notorious for producing an
excessive amount of waste or garbage and dumping their waste in the oceans and,
less developed countries. Nuclear waste disposal has tremendous health hazards
associated with it. Plastic, fast food, packaging and cheap electronic wastes
threaten the well being of humans. Waste disposal is one of urgent current
environmental problem.
Our
forests are natural sinks of carbon dioxide and produce fresh oxygen as well as
helps in regulating temperature and rainfall. At present forests cover 30% of
the land but every year tree cover is lost amounting to the country of Panama
due to growing population demand for more food, shelter and cloth.
Deforestation simply means clearing of green cover and make that land available
for residential, industrial or commercial purpose.
Clean
drinking water is becoming a rare commodity. Water is becoming an economic and
political issue as the human population fights for this resource. One of the
options suggested is using the process of desalinization. Industrial
development is filling our rivers seas and oceans with toxic pollutants which
are a major threat to human health.
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