Awareness About Environmental Issues That Are Occurring Now
Environment, the things we can taste, sight, touch, smell and hear. Environment, everything that comprises our surrounding. Environment, the air we breathe, the water that covers the Earth, and the land we stand on. Recently, the environment has been a massive topic beyond countries and it has been said for a million times about the need for action to preserve the environment. Apparently, none of us cares about the environment anymore.
Our world is getting contaminated over years and years. To most of us here, the environment is becoming less important each and every day. But, have you ever ask yourself the air pollution, water pollution, species loss, deforestation, fresh water shortages, and climate change is not considered serious?And have you ever ask yourself why these issues occur? And the answer to this is because of us, the humans.
I might not be the expert on this topic, but since I have opened my eyes to see the world for the first time, I’ve seen the trees, forest, and land are decreasing each year and in a blink of an eye, these things became factories, villages, towers and shopping malls. It’s hard for me to imagine such a land with trees with greens and flowers became a busy street with throngs and vehicles. However, we have to accept what’s happening to our world today because it all started with our actions and have brought a tremendous change to this planet which our planet is currently facing a lot of environmental issues such as air pollution, deforestation or even production of plastic goods.
Human activity is one of the major cause of producing air pollution which air pollution releases gas into the atmosphere and can have many negative effects on the environment. According to Ducksters, one of the ways that humans cause the most air pollution is by burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas. Therefore, when we burn fossil fuels, this releases all sorts of gasses into the air causing air pollution such as smog. The ozone layer helps protect us from harmful rays from the sun. Still, it is getting damaged from the air pollution such as the methane gas from livestock and CFCs from spray cans. This causes the ozone layer to break up and become unable to absorb UV light.
Moreover, air pollution creates acid rain which when gasses like sulfur dioxide get high into the atmosphere. The wind can blow these gasses for miles and the gasses get washed out when it rains which it can damage the forests and fishes. Air pollution is the extension of carbon dioxide gas into the air. “Some scientists believe that releasing too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is one of the causes of global warming and this upsets the balance of the carbon cycle. ” Not only human activity produces air pollution, but the human also produces a kind of polymeric material that effects the environment called plastics.
Do you guys ever realized that everything in your daily life is made out of plastics? Even bags in the market are made out of plastics, the water bottle we used made out of plastics, the cups we drink made out of plastics. But have we ever ask ourselves, when we finished using these things, we throw it into the general trash cans and where does it go? I’m sure none of you have asked yourselves, even me too.
When plastics are thrown away they usually end up in landfills, waterways or even oceans. According to the HelpSaveNature, approximately 70, 000 tons of plastics are dumped into oceans and waterways. Not including the fishing nets and other synthetic materials that are eaten by the aquatic animals as well as the terrestrial animals because of mistaken them as jellyfish or food which it leads to bio-accumulation of plastic in their bodies. It can also cause choking and eventually leading to a painful death. Many fishes and turtles happen to die because of this.
Plastic is ubiquitous (everywhere). Plastic debris (rubbish) can be found everywhere in the world from the Arctic to Antarctica. It closes street drains in our cities and it litters our national parks. According to the reusit. com, reports that in a “landfill, plastics may take up to 1, 000 years to degrade and they break down into tiny particles that contaminate our soil and water. ” There are many solutions to this issue, we could even reduce, reuse and recycle the plastic. We love to use plastics but we hate to recycle them. That’s why our world is now full of plastics. Over the last 70 years, the plastics that have been thrown away, 79 percent of them are either thrown into landfill sites or into the general environment. But, ONLY 9 percent is recycled. In fact, human activity has affected the ocean, ut it also has affected the terrestrials.
Conclusion
It is our time for us, the humans, who have to take action towards saving our Earth from these environmental issues. If we ignore this today, it will definitely affect us by tomorrow, like what Emma Watson said:” If not me who? If not now when? The future depends on usSave the green, make the Earth smile.
