A short view of our main environmental issues

In this report I will talk about the three main problems that occur nowadays. First of all there’s the endangered animals: species who are threatened to go extinct. Then we have the toxic pesticides that are used today to fend off illnesses for e.g. plants. Lastly the global warming causes great concern. This report should give a good insight into what we can do to stop these threats.

Firstly, endangered animals are a great concern to many geologists. When species go extinct, the other species will roam freely. When for instance a plant-eating kind of rabbit has gone extinct, the plant it used to ate can now grow wherever it wants: there’s no holding back. The insects that live from or on the plant can also multiply easier, and this way a whole ecology can change. Therefore we shouldn’t build houses wherever we want: it might kill the one species that maintains another species. Also, we have to be careful what animals to hunt: killing the prey will also slow the growth of the rabbits down.

Secondly, the poison used to fend off illnesses or insects which eat crops is very dangerous for the environment. Accumulation is the main factor: the pesticides kill the insects, and the birds eat the insects. When the predatory bird eats the other birds, it gets so much toxin that it will die too. This way people can wipe out many types of birds and insects, which is devastating for the rest of the environment. That’s why farmers should either use biological products or prevent the birds from eating the poisoned insects, in one way or another.

Lastly, there’s the global warming. This may cause all of us problems, throughout the world. When ice melts, the water level will rise significantly. Cities under the water level will flood, and whole countries can be washed away. Of course everything happens very slowly, but in a few 1000 years people will definitely be in trouble. Global warming also making climats change, and animals as well as plants will have a really hard time adjusting this fast to the changes. Therefore we should try to cut down on the use of electricity, and consider travelling in other ways: instead of going by car, we should go by public transport or walk to nearby places. Even buying vegetables and fruit that come from our own country will help cut down the emission of greenhouse gasses.

All this means changing the way we live now, and it might be tough, but we should think about what damage we couse the environment and other animals. We have to be careful when building new buildings, use biological means to fend off unwanted animals or diseases, and rethink the way we transport ourselves, as well as our food.

How tourism and welfare will destroy the environment we know today

This report is about the influences of tourism and overall welfare to our environment. The obvious things are of course pollution because we buy more stuff and all that stuff has to be wrapped and packed, which we will afterwards discard of and which will pollute the earth. I will not talk about this in this report though, I’ll focus on stuff that’s a bit “witty” but not completely.

First of all there’s the fuel being burnt by all the planes and busses. This of course, pollutes the earth. Also, the demand for oil will be higher and we will run out of oil quicker. Then, there’s no way for you to go on holiday or anyone else for that matter. All the people will get grumpy and become angry more easily. Everything will just end in a big fight with everyone dying in the end.

Then there’s the welfare part. The welfare as well as the increase in tourism makes our demand for oil bigger as said before. It also makes the demand for building materials such as wood, metal and glass higher. All the materials have to be produced and that as well pollutes the earth.

The welfare we have also makes others jealous of it. The upcoming terrorism is the biggest threat to our social lives at this moment, because Al Qaida will want to take revenge on us for killing Osama. I hope they won’t fly into our western world with a plane again, because that costs fuel. Also, the U.S. will have to build some air defense if that’s the case and the production of such goods produces GHG.

Report: The biggest threats to our environment.

As asked, I looked into the problems our environment has to cope with. Some of them were particularly threatening, so I came up with a few solutions to help preserve our world.

The first problem is our disposal of unusable products, like fumes and waste, which effectively poison the environment. It is mostly blamed on companies, which should really try to control and possibly purify their waste before it goes out, but the common man should also keep their waste removal in check.

When we poison and exterminate plantlife, we also ruin the chances of survival for a lot of animal species. Their extinction will then affect other species and parts of the environment. We should therefore open breeding centre's to bring the decline in numbers of these creatures to a halt. While the big companies should donate their money to build and maintain the centre's, we individuals should spend our time working to make sure these animals survive.

Finally, there's always the danger of a natural disaster that changes the environment. It may not be the most pressing danger, but the eruption of a large volcano, for example, will completely reshape the land and thus the environment. Unfortunately, there is also very little we can do about those disasters. This problem is somewhat adressed in Evy's "Disaster and preparations", but overall there's just not much you can do.

We can combat the more immediate threats, such as those in the first paragraphs. It's not terribly hard, we just need to stop being lazy.