Top 5 Environmental Problems

The environment is constantly changing, including due to human activities. Even small changes in the ecosystem can cause massive catastrophes and tragedies – now and in the future. To respond effectively to danger, we need to understand what we are dealing with.

Consider the five most critical environmental issues of our planet.

Deforestation

Currently, the problem of tree felling is relevant for all continents, but the most acute pain is in Western Europe, South America, and Asia. Intensive deforestation leads to deforestation. Free of trees, the area turns into a poor landscape and becomes uninhabitable. Search for an environmental issues essay if you want to learn more about this problem. Such essay examples can be helpful not only for college or university student who studies ecological issues for education or has a task to write an essay on the topic. It can be beneficial for all people who do not have appropriate education and want to save the planet.

To understand how close the catastrophe is, pay attention to some facts:

• more than half of the world’s rainforests have already been destroyed, and it will take hundreds of years to restore them;
• Currently, only 30% of the land area is occupied by forests;
• regular felling of trees leads to an increase in the atmosphere of carbon monoxide by 6-12%;
• every minute the forest area, equal in size to several football fields, disappears.

Pollution

There are two primary sources of environmental pollution: natural and anthropogenic. Among natural sources, there are volcanoes, forest fires, dust storms, weathering, and decomposition of plants and animals. Sources of anthropogenic pollution of the atmosphere are various substances like heat, oil, gas refining, industry, and transport.

One of the main types of air pollution is transport. Car emissions contain harmful substances such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. Motor vehicles account for 90% of carbon monoxide emitted into the atmosphere. At high levels in the air, it causes drowsiness and even death. The maximum emissions are recorded during peak hours, and the concentration of harmful substances inside the car is the highest. It is believed that nitrogen dioxide irritates the lungs and causes exacerbation of asthma.

Solid particles that settle around (including our clothing and skin) are part of the pollution from vehicles. The smallest of them (up to 10 micrometers in diameter, i.e., one-hundredth of a millimeter) can penetrate deep into the lungs, exacerbating respiratory diseases. Significant amounts of these particles are emitted by diesel cars and large trucks.

Global warming

A bit of bad environmental news. The temperature on Earth has reached its maximum in 120,000 years, and people are to blame for this.

Scientists believe that global warming has caused an increase in greenhouse gases. The volume of carbon dioxide in the air has become a record for the last 14 million years, the importance of methane for 800 millennia. The Earth’s atmosphere transmits solar energy from space, but carbon dioxide and methane do not allow heat to return. As a result – the Earth heats up like in a greenhouse.

Researchers have been talking about the threat of climate catastrophe since the 1980s, and since then, the worst fears have come true. For the past 70 years, the balance that has been maintained for thousands of years has been upset. In just a few decades, the Earth’s average temperature has risen by more than a degree and continues to grow at an accelerated pace.

Acid rain

The first acid rain in history was recorded in 1872, just in the heyday of industrialization and factories and mill’s mass construction. What are the causes of acid rain? Exhaust gasses from cars, another source of air pollution, are also another cause of acid rain.

The natural causes of acid rain are not related to human activities. They are usually due to volcanic eruptions, then also. The atmosphere gets a lot of nitrogen-containing substances, which interact with the formation of nitric acid, which falls into acid rain.

Effects

What are the consequences of acid rain? There are many negative consequences:

• loss of crops,
• water pollution,
• reduction of forest area,
• diseases in humans.

Ocean acidification

Ocean acidification is a decrease in the pH of ocean water over some time. The main reason is the dissolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the sea. Acidification changes the chemical properties of water, making the ecosystem dangerous to its flora and fauna. When carbon dioxide is released into the environment, the ocean accounts for about 30% of the amount. After a while, the ocean level rises, and biodiversity is lost.

Conclusion

As we can see, humanity has faced many environmental issues. Scientists cannot fully determine the causes of some of them and their connection with anthropogenic activities. But the need for immediate change in the daily lives of earthlings becomes urgent. If people continue to move forward in such a detrimental way for the future, there will be no future. Solving environmental problems begins with ourselves, our families, and our communities, with changes in consciousness to keep our environment comfortable, safe, and diverse.