How do we destroy nature? How man is killing the planet
Man is the main enemy of the planet - the place where he lives, he himself turns into a huge waste dump. Sad but true! Environmentalists have long been trying to appeal to the human mind by annually publishing materials about the damage people cause to the Earth, however, few people listen to the "greens". Let's take a look at the scale of the pollution problem in the world!
1. Just imagine: every year the world's oceans receive a "gift" from a person - 6 billion kilograms of garbage. And most of this garbage is. Toxic and non-degradable, it destroys marine life. As an example, 3 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour in the US alone. Each discarded bottle decomposes within 500 years.
2. It's no secret that oil spills, which occur due to accidents on tankers or on oil platforms, become fatal for the inhabitants of the oceans, as well as for people. But, few people know that without any accidents, for every million tons of oil shipped, there is always one ton of spilled oil.
3. As for the purity of the air, there are more than 500 million cars in the world today. Experts estimate that by 2030 this figure will increase to more than a billion! This means that in just 13 years, air pollution will double. By the way, one of the countries with the most high level air pollution in the world is considered. In Beijing, the pollution has reached such a degree that it is comparable to the 21st cigarette smoked a day.
4. An urgent problem has become electronic. For a couple of decades, this problem was not acute, but now, when technology: computers, televisions, mobile phones is becoming more accessible to consumers, even with low incomes, the situation is beginning to worsen. For example, in 2012 alone, people threw away nearly 50 million tons of e-waste.
5. Not many people have heard of light pollution, except for ornithologists and scientists. It is understandable - this type of pollution has almost no effect on people, but on birds - yes. So, because of the bright electric light, birds confuse days and nights, but this is not the main thing, scientists have found that light pollution can even change the pattern of migration of some animal species.
6. According to scientific research, every eighth death in the world is somehow related to air pollution.
Only these five points show that our planet is in danger, and the sixth point shows that people harm themselves, forcing themselves to survive in conditions of anthropogenic pollution.
psychology of health and longevityIt is impossible to imagine a healthy humanity without a clean and flourishing living environment.
The psychology of health and long life is, first of all, education in early childhood in the child feelings of respect and love for nature.
Nature is not only forests and lakes, it is ALL living things, the whole Cosmos. This is what surrounds a person, this is the primary environment, without which his full, unburdened existence, physical and spiritual health are simply unthinkable. The idea of separating a person from Nature, proclaiming him “the crown of creation and transferring the world of Living Nature and all its riches to his control and undivided use is a violation of the “Initial Balance”. A person is a part of nature. When he ceases to feel himself to be this part, harmony is violated, which leads to disaster.
The destruction of nature always entails consequences, one of which is irreversible spiritual loss. modern man divorced from folk roots.
It is very difficult to educate, instill love and respect for Nature, creating a huge environmental problem. The senseless mass destruction of animals, trees, water bodies is a threat to earthly prosperity, a harbinger of the death of the living world.
A person needs to think again and understand that without nature, not only healthy offspring, but the very life of mankind is impossible! Change in Nature will lead a person to mutations. Each of us should feel responsible for everything that happens around, for the land that belongs to everyone - who was before us and who will come after us.
The psychology of health and longevity begins with the feeling of being a part of this unique beauty-Nature, with love for insects, dogs and cats ... And this love should be based on such concepts as duty, rumple, conscience.
How to do it?
Original taken from oleg_bubnov in Love for Nature for children and adults
How much people consider themselves lovers of nature and try to spend a significant part of their free time away from the bustle of the city! After a vacation or a weekend, having breathed fresh air, having a good swim and gaining strength, we return home with new impressions. Love for nature ennobles a person, makes him kinder and cleaner, if only this is true love.
What is our love? Is it mutual? How do we feel about what we love?
Love for the nature of the child
The little man, developing, learns the world. Initially, the potential of love for all living things lives in children. And if a baby, growing up, begins to destroy nature, animals, then adults are to blame, first of all, because the upbringing of love for nature begins already from infancy, and it is very important to instill a sense of responsibility for all life on earth in time.
Learning to love the small
It is important that the child understands that even the smallest creature is worthy of life. Let the education of love for nature begin with insects. One-year-olds actively explore the world, and their attention is attracted by bright butterflies, bugs, ants. The child wants to feel everything, to test for strength. He still does not understand the fragility of the creatures around him, so you need to teach him to take care of even a bug.
Explain to the baby that when he squeezes a beetle in his hand, it hurts the insect, tell the child more about the world of insects, look at pictures in books. And your efforts will gradually begin to give fertile shoots. Save with your child ladybugs, bugs. Let the kid remove the insect from the road, where it can be crushed, or get a bug out of a puddle. Praise the little lifeguard. After all, he did a good, good deed.
Cats and dogs are best friends
Very often, pets become favorites of kids. They are great at educating young explorers. big world. Games with cats or dogs teach the child to take care of animals, to empathize. It is not uncommon to see small children talking to "little brothers". After all, for them, such communication is more useful and better than any toys. And you can't replace it with anything.
Do not feel fear that something is wrong with your child when he tries to pick up the kitten by the tail or poke a finger in the dog's eye. This is not because the baby is cruel. It's just that children get to know the world this way, they need to touch everything, conduct a small experiment. The child does not yet understand that animals experience pain in the same way as people. And your task is to explain it. Explain that animals are fragile and can be hurt or harmed. Do not leave the baby alone with the animal, always control the process of communication so that you can always correct the actions of the child. Your spending time together- another contribution to the education of love for nature.
Tell your child more about the habits and habits of animals, so that the baby knows the characteristics of small pets, learns to love and understand them. Involve your child in caring for your cat or dog. Of course, the habit of caring for or feeding a pet will not come to the child right away. But gradually your kindness and warmth will bring results. The child will begin to develop responsibility and love.
green friends
Instill love for plants along with animals. Let the baby help take care of indoor flowers. This is also part of nature, which teaches love and spiritual beauty. Let the baby water "his" flower. Let him plant a sprout or seed and watch "his" plant gradually grow. After all, the upbringing of love for nature is laid in the little things, which a little later will give you a kind, caring little man who loves the world around him.
Love for nature adults
For example, consider a couple of situations that almost every one of us has repeatedly observed. Here is a company of young people with large backpacks and bundles gathered, as they often say now, to “hang out” in nature. They took with them a powerful music center and so many strong drinks that would be enough for a company of soldiers. How they will “rest” and what they will bring to their environment is not difficult to guess. Here, somewhere on the banks of a river or lake, they pitched tents, lit a fire. "Well, what's wrong with that?" - you ask. So far, it seems to be nothing, though ... For some reason, the bonfire is complicated not in a clearing, but right in the middle of bushes and trees. The fact that the smoke and heat from the fire will be harmful to plants is not even worth talking about - even, what good, they will laugh at.
And the music? Why not listen to the splashing of water, the sound of trees, the chirping of birds? Isn't that why we finally leave the city? No, the rumbling music filled everything around, and not only the eardrums of young people (who think they are resting) are suffering - nature is suffering. Most of us just for the sake of saying that nature is alive. But it really is! All nature is inhabited by living, conscious entities, which we, having moved away from it for many millennia, have forgotten how to see and hear. Well, we don't even know about their existence. For us, they are only “literature”, images that come from myths and legends, and this is at best. For such entities, such a roar is a real torment, they suffer, and this affects flowers and trees, animals and birds.
And not only the noise suffers nature. It's no secret that most people smoke. Smoking poisons the human body, and for the "essential" living in the forests, where, due to the relative distance from civilization, everything is much cleaner than in the city, this muck is especially painful. Is this love?! And what “gratitude” is sent to us for our notorious lack of conscience by the faithful servants of the Creator and the Lord, who care for nature, can be seen with the naked eye. Dried rivers and lakes, ruined trees, endangered species of animals and much more over the past decades have almost unrecognizably changed even the visible world of the planet, there is nothing to say about the subtle world. What kind of “reciprocity” is there! We don't deserve it!
... And two days flew by in such a frenzy, it's time to return. Around there were broken and withered from the smoke bushes and mountains of garbage. We should take the garbage with us and throw it in a special container, but this never occurs to anyone. For what? After all, they are not going to come back here anymore, there are enough other places, Russia is big. Let others take care of themselves. Sad, if not tragic...
Another example. The men go fishing. But not with fishing rods and spinning rods, but with nets and lines. They catch fish in bags, throw away the change, without thinking about anything - neither about the fact that they pollute the subtle world with their aspirations and deeds, nor about the fact that they seriously violate the ecology of the visible gross material world. And if they are engaged in such "fishing" during spawning, when the process of reproduction is going on? Moreover, for the sake of one caviar (!) gutting and throwing away the most valuable fish, which could not fulfill one of its most important natural tasks - to bring offspring! What kind of love for nature is here, it rather smacks of hatred.
And after all, almost none of us thinks about the fact that we will have to answer for our deeds to the fullest extent - we managed, they say, to circumvent the earthly law, and all right. There is no need to talk about responsibility before God, in whom many do not believe. But even the responsibility to our children, in which each of us “oh, how we believe!”, We ignore, leaving behind chaos, dirt and destruction. It's an unsightly picture, but that's how it really is. True love for nature, no doubt, would help every person to change for the better.
Nowadays, the problems of protecting the natural environment and ensuring environmental safety have become very important. People have seen from their own experience that, unfortunately, no human intervention in nature goes unnoticed, very often rash acts of people have extremely unpleasant consequences. The opinion, widespread in the twentieth century, that man is the conqueror of nature, turned out to be erroneous.
Man is just one of the children of mother nature, and, as it turned out, far from her most intelligent child, because no other creatures destroy the world in which they live. In order to somehow make amends for past mistakes and prevent such mistakes in the future, today humanity pays a lot of attention to such issues as protecting nature, economical consumption natural resources caring for animals and plants...
Once upon a time, people thought lightly that such seemingly insignificant phenomena as the extermination of some kind of insects, deforestation somewhere far away in the taiga, or pollution of a small river, are unlikely to have any serious consequences. However, as practice has shown, even these "little things" can become fatal, because everything in the world is interconnected, so that even the disappearance of the tiniest link in the chain inevitably leads to a violation of the general balance. As a result, we have what we have - global warming, ozone holes, hundreds of species of animals and plants that are on the verge of extinction ...
The people themselves are also suffering, who today are faced with many problems that were unknown to them before - an increase in the number of various diseases among the population, the birth of a large number of babies with certain pathologies, and much more. Today, health care has become one of the main priorities human society because the deterioration of the environmental situation has dealt a serious blow to human health. Excessive human activity and an irresponsible attitude towards nature have turned against us, therefore, if we want to save natural resources for our descendants, who will live many hundreds of years after us, we must now take active measures to protect the environment.
What to do?
You need to start small - with the struggle for the purity of your locality because ecology is the key to our common prosperous future. When you go to nature to relax, you should take large garbage bags with you and clean up and after you the area where you are relaxing or going to relax (and preferably not only behind you). It is worth setting an example for people, conducting active campaigning everywhere (leaflets, posters, newspapers, explanations), holding mass subbotniks, teaching people to take care of the natural environment, fighting those who stubbornly do not want to change their boorish and consumerist attitude towards Nature (attracting to liability).
Everything returns to normal, everything that we have prepared for ourselves, according to the great Law of Interaction, which is sometimes called the "Law of Sowing and Harvest." It does not matter that we do not know about the existence of the universal and most perfect Laws of the Universe, our ignorance does not relieve us of responsibility. So isn't it better for each of us, before it's too late, to try to look at ourselves from the outside and start doing something right now?
Let's still love, appreciate and respect Mother Nature, because this is ours, in which we live! Let's not mindlessly throw garbage anywhere and everywhere (even travel tickets or a piece of paper from ice cream)! Think! Do it! Teach yourself and others about order and cleanliness! Purely not where they clean, but where they don't litter...
Nature is like a miracle
Can't be understood or understood. That puts on a cold fur coat,
That melts the asphalt into dust.
Rain in the heat is uncontrollably desirable,
Rapid streams ripple.
Soul impulses pacifies
And cleanses thoughts from filth.
People are in a hurry to know all the facets
Mother's native nature.
But they understand that something controls us -
Ignorance does not let through and stands as a wall.
Dreams go to infinity.
The footprints are tangled in the shadows.
Nature reveals eternity
For those who are pure in their thoughts.
, http://puzkarapuz.ru/content/289 .
Incredible Facts
It's lunchtime, but there's no food at home, so you get behind the wheel and drive to the nearest grocery store.
You walk among the stalls in the hope of buying something. In the end, you choose a chicken and a ready-made salad and return home to enjoy your meal.
Consider how a seemingly harmless trip to the store has affected the environment.
First, driving a car contributed to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The electricity in the store is nothing but the result of burning coal, the mining of which has devastated the Appalachian ecosystem.
The salad ingredients were farm grown and treated with pesticides, which then ended up in water streams, poisoning fish and aquatic plants (which help keep the air clean).
The chicken was raised on a remote poultry farm, where animal waste releases large amounts of toxic methane into the atmosphere. When delivering goods to the store, many modes of transport were involved, each of which caused its own harm to the environment.
Even the smallest human actions initiate changes in the environment. How we heat our homes, power our electrical appliances, what we do with our trash, and where our food comes from all have a huge impact on the environment.
Considering the problem at the public level, it can be noted that human behavior has significantly affected the environment. The temperature of the earth has increased by one degree Fahrenheit since 1975. polar ice decreased by 9 percent in just one decade.
We have caused enormous damage to the planet, much more than you can imagine. Construction, irrigation, mining significantly spoils the natural landscape and disrupts important ecological processes. Aggressive fishing and hunting can deplete species stocks, and human migration can introduce alien species into established food chains. Greed leads to catastrophic accidents, and laziness leads to destructive practices.
10. Public projects
Sometimes public works projects don't really work for the benefit of the public. Designed to generate clean energy, for example, dam projects in China have devastated everything around them, flooding cities and environmental waste sites, greatly increasing the risk of natural disasters.
In 2007, China completed 20 years of construction on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, the Three Gorges Dam. During this project, more than 1.2 million people had to leave their usual habitats, as 13 major cities, 140 ordinary cities and 1350 villages. Hundreds of factories, mines, dumps and industrial centers were also flooded, plus the main reservoirs were heavily polluted. The project has changed the ecosystem of the Yangtze River, turning the once-mighty river into a stagnant basin, thereby destroying the local flora and fauna to a greater extent.
Redirected rivers also greatly increase the risk of landslides along banks that are home to hundreds of thousands of people. Nearly half a million people along the river are projected to be relocated by 2020 as landslides are imminent and the ecosystem continues to deplete.
Scientists have recently linked dam building to earthquakes. The Three Gorges Reservoir was built on top of two major fault lines, with hundreds of small shocks occurring since its discovery. Scientists have suggested that the catastrophic 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province, which killed 8,000 people, was also caused by the accumulation of water in the area of the dam, located less than half a mile from the center of the start of the tremors. The phenomenon of dams that provoke earthquakes is associated with water pressure that builds up under the reservoir, which, in turn, increases the pressure in rocks and acts as a softener for fault lines that are already under stress.
9. Overfishing
"There are a lot of fish in the sea" is no longer a completely reliable statement. Humanity's appetite for seafood has devastated our oceans to the point where experts fear the ability of many species to repopulate on their own.
According to the World Federation wildlife, the global fish catch exceeds the allowable rate by 2.5 times. More than half of the world's fish stocks and species are already depleted, and one quarter of the species is over-depleted. Ninety percent of large fish species - tuna, swordfish, cod, halibut, flounder, marlin - have lost their natural habitat. According to forecasts, if the situation does not change, then by 2048 the stocks of these fish will disappear.
It is worth noting that the main culprit of what is happening are advances in fishing technology. Most commercial fishing boats today are equipped with fishfinder sonar. Once they find the right spot, the fishermen release huge nets, the size of three football fields, that can sweep up all the fish in a matter of minutes. Thus, with this approach, fish populations can be reduced by 80 percent in 10-15 years.
8. Invasive Species
Man throughout the era of the founding of the world was himself a distributor of invasive species. Even though it may seem to you that your favorite pet or plant feels much better in a new place, in fact, the natural balance is disturbed. Invasive flora and fauna have been proven to be the most destructive thing humanity has done to the environment.
In the United States, 400 out of 958 species are listed in the Red List because they are considered to be at risk due to competition with invasive alien species.
Invasive species problems mostly affect invertebrates. For example, in the first half of the 20th century, an Asian fungus destroyed more than 180 million acres of American chestnut trees. As a result, more than 10 species dependent on chestnuts have become extinct.
7. Coal mining
The biggest danger posed by coal mining is climate change, but it also threatens local ecosystems.
Market realities pose a serious threat to coal mining, especially in the United States. Coal is a cheap source of energy - one megawatt of energy produced with coal costs $20-30, as opposed to one megawatt produced with natural gas - $45-60. Moreover, one quarter of the world's coal reserves are located in the United States.
Two of the most destructive forms of the coal mining industry are the extraction of coal from the tops of mountains and the use of gas. In the first case, the miners can "cut down" more than 305 meters of a mountain peak in order to get to the coal deposit. Extraction with the help of gas occurs when coal is closer to the surface of the mountain. In this case, all the "inhabitants" of the mountain (trees and any other creatures living in them) are exterminated to extract valuable minerals.
Each practice of this kind creates a large amount of waste in its path. Extensive damaged and old forest areas are being dumped into nearby valleys. In the United States alone, it is estimated that more than 121,405 hectares of hardwood forests have been destroyed by coal mining in West Virginia. By 2012, it is said that 5,180 square kilometers of Appalachian forest will cease to exist.
The question of what to do with this kind of "waste" is still open. Usually, mining companies simply dump unwanted trees, dead wild animals, etc. into nearby valleys, which in turn not only destroys natural ecosystems, but also affects the desiccation major rivers. Industrial waste from mines finds shelter in riverbeds.
6. Human disasters
Although most of the ways in which man harms the environment develop over a period of years, some events may occur in an instant, but this instant will have far-reaching consequences.
In 1989, the oil spill in Prince Williams Bay, Alaska, had the most serious consequences. Then there was a spill of about 11 million gallons of crude oil, as a result of this accident, more than 25,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 seals, 250 eagles, about 22 killer whales, as well as billions of salmon and herring, died. At least two species, the Pacific herring and the murre dove, did not recover from the disaster.
It is still too early to assess the damage to wildlife from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the scale of the disaster is unlike anything seen before in American history. Over the course of several days, more than 9.5 million liters of oil were seeping into the bay daily, the largest spill in American history. By most estimates, wildlife damage is still lower than the 1989 spill due to lower species densities. However, despite this, there is no doubt that the damage from the spill will persist for many years to come.
5. Cars
America has long been considered the land of cars, so it's no surprise that one-fifth of all US greenhouse gas emissions come from cars. There are 232 million cars on the roads of this country, very few of which are powered by electricity, and the average car consumes about 2271 liters of gasoline annually.
One car emits about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the form of exhaust gases. In order to purify the air of these impurities, 240 trees will be needed. In America, cars emit about the same amount of carbon dioxide as coal-burning factories.
The combustion process that takes place in a car engine produces fine particles of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide. In large quantities, these chemicals can harm the human respiratory system, causing coughing and choking. Cars also generate carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas produced by burning fossil fuels that blocks the transport of oxygen to the brain, heart, and other vital organs.
At the same time, the extraction of oil, which is necessary to create fuel and oil for the movement of the car, in turn, also has a serious impact on the environment. Land drilling is crowding out native species, while offshore drilling and subsequent transportation has created an unthinkable amount of problems over the years, as more than 40 million gallons of oil have been spilled worldwide since 1978.
4. Unsustainable agriculture
In all the ways that humanity harms the environment, there is one common trend: we are not able to plan for the future. But nowhere is this more evident than in our method of growing our own food.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, real farming practices are responsible for 70 percent of the pollution in the country's rivers and streams. drains chemical substances, contaminated soil, animal waste, all this gets into waterways, among which already more than 173,000 miles are in a deplorable state. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides increase nitrogen levels and decrease oxygen levels in water.
Pesticides used to protect crops from being eaten by predators threaten the survival of some bird and insect species. For example, the number of bee colonies on US farmland fell from 4.4 million in 1985 to less than 2 million in 1997. When exposed to pesticides, the immune system of bees weakens, making them more vulnerable to the enemy.
Large-scale industrial agriculture also contributes to the process of global warming. The vast majority of meat products in the world are produced on industrial farms. On any farm, tens of thousands of cattle are concentrated in small areas in order to save space. Among other things, when untreated animal waste is destroyed, there is an emission of harmful gases, including methane, which, in turn, has a significant impact on the process of global warming.
3. Deforestation
There were times when most of land on the planet was covered with forests. Today, forests are disappearing before our eyes. According to the United Nations, 32 million acres of forest are lost every year, including 14,800 acres of virgin forests, that is, land that is not occupied or affected by human activity. Seventy percent of the planet's animals and plants live in forests, and, accordingly, having lost their home, they themselves will face the threat of extinction as a species.
The problem is particularly acute in tropical forests with a humid climate. Such forests cover 7 percent of the land area and provide a home for about half of all species on the planet. At the current rate of deforestation, scientists estimate that the rainforest will be wiped off the face of the earth in about 100 years.
Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees absorb greenhouse gases, so fewer trees means more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. They also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor to the atmosphere. Without trees, forests will quickly turn into barren deserts, leading to even more severe fluctuations in global temperatures. When forests burn, trees release carbon into the atmosphere, which also contributes to the problem of global warming. Scientists have calculated that the trees of the Amazon forest have processed the amount of greenhouse gases equivalent to 10 years of human activity.
Poverty is one of the main causes of deforestation. Most rainforests are in Third World countries, and politicians there are regularly stimulating economic development weak regions. Thus, lumberjacks and farmers are slowly but surely doing their job. In most cases, deforestation occurs due to the need to create a farm site. The farmer usually burns trees and vegetation in order to obtain ash, which can then be used as fertilizer. This process called slash-and-burn agriculture. Among other things, the risk of soil erosion and flooding increases as, over the years, the nutrients from the soil evaporate, and the land is often unable to support the planted crops for which the trees were cut down.
2. Global warming
The average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 130 years. Ice caps are melting at an alarming rate - since 1979 more than 20 percent of the world's ice has disappeared. Sea levels are rising, causing flooding, and having a significant impact on catastrophic natural disasters occurring worldwide with increasing frequency.
Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, in which some gases channel the heat received from the sun back into the atmosphere. Since 1990, annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by about 6 billion tons worldwide, or 20 percent.
The gas most responsible for global warming is carbon dioxide, which accounts for 82 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels, mainly by driving cars and by feeding factories and factories with coal. Five years ago, global atmospheric concentrations of gases were already 35 percent higher than before the industrial revolution.
Global warming can lead to the development of natural disasters, large-scale food and water shortages, and devastating effects on wildlife. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by 17.8 - 58.4 cm by the end of the century. And since most of the world's population lives in coastal areas, this is a very big danger for both people and ecosystems .
1. Overpopulation
"Overpopulation is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about," says Dr. John Guillebaud, professor of family planning and reproductive health at University College London. "If we ourselves cannot reduce the population by humane methods of family planning, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics and famine," he adds.
Over the past 40 years, the world's population has grown from 3 billion to 6.7 billion. 75 million people (equivalent to the population of Germany) are added annually, or more than 200,000 daily. According to forecasts, by 2050 the world population will exceed 9 billion people.
More people means more waste, more demand for food, more production of consumer goods, more need for electricity, cars, and so on. In other words, all the factors that contribute to global warming will only get worse.
Increasing demand for food will force farmers and fishermen to do more harm to already fragile ecosystems. The forests will be removed almost entirely as cities continue to expand and new areas for farmland will be needed. The list of endangered species is getting longer. In rapidly developing countries such as India and China, increased energy consumption is expected to increase carbon emissions. In short, the more people, the more problems.
Today, the sad truth is no longer a secret to anyone - our planet is in danger, and plants and animals have to survive in conditions of anthropogenic pollution. Even the photographs that appear in the press from time to time are not able to convey the seriousness and scale of the pollution problem. In this review, little-known and shocking facts that allow you to understand the seriousness of the problem.
1. 3 million plastic bottles
Earth
More than 6 billion kilograms of garbage is dumped into the world's oceans every year. Most of this garbage is plastic, which is toxic to marine life. In America alone, 3 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour. But each such bottle decomposes within 500 years.
2. "Trash Continent"
Pacific Ocean
Few people know about this, but pacific ocean there is an entire "continent" of plastic waste known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. By some estimates, this plastic "garbage continent" could be twice the size of the United States.
3. 500 million cars
Earth
There are over 500 million cars in the world today, and by 2030 this number is expected to grow to over a billion. This means that pollution caused by cars could potentially double in 14 years.
4. 30% of the world's waste
USA
Americans make up only 5% of the world's population. In doing so, they produce 30% of the world's waste and use about a quarter of the world's natural resources.
5. Oil spills
World Ocean
Everyone knows that mass fatal oil spills are formed after accidents with tankers or drilling rigs. At the same time, it is practically unknown that for every million tons of oil shipped, there is always one ton of spilled oil (and this is without any accidents).
6. Pure Antarctica
Antarctica
The only relatively clean place on Earth is Antarctica. This continent is protected by the Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits military activities, mining, nuclear explosions and disposal of nuclear waste.
7. Beijing air
China
China is among the countries with the highest levels of air pollution in the world. Just breathing the air in Beijing increases your risk of lung cancer to the same extent as smoking 21 cigarettes a day. In addition, almost 700 million Chinese (about half of the country's population) are forced to drink contaminated water.
8. Ganges River
India
Water pollution is even worse in India, where almost 80% of all city waste is dumped into the Ganges River - the Hindus' most sacred river. Also in this river, poor Indians bury dead family members.
9. Lake Karachay
Russia
Lake Karachay - a radioactive waste dump of the former Soviet Union, which is located in Chelyabinsk region, is the most polluted place on Earth. If a person spends only an hour in this lake, he is guaranteed to die.
10. Electronic waste
Earth
As computers, televisions, mobile phones and other electronic devices become more and more accessible in the world, e-waste is a growing problem in last years. For example, in 2012 alone, people threw away almost 50 million tons of e-waste.
11. A third of British fish change sex
England
About a third of fish in British rivers change sex due to water pollution. Scientists believe that the main reason for this are hormones from the waste in sewage, including birth control pills.
12. 80 thousand synthetic chemicals
Earth
In modern days in human body up to 500 chemicals were found that were not in it before 1920. There are almost 80,000 synthetic chemicals on the market today.
13. San Francisco air from China
Environmental problem: light pollution.
Earth
Light pollution generally does not have a significant effect on humans, but it causes serious problems for many animals. Birds often confuse days and nights, and scientists have found that light pollution can even change the migration patterns of some animal species.
Today, people are looking for different ways to make their lives safer and production more environmentally friendly. So, .
The nature of our planet is very diverse and inhabited by unique species of plants, animals, birds and microorganisms. All this diversity is closely interconnected and allows our planet to preserve and maintain a unique balance between various life forms.
In contact with
Human impact on the environment
From the very first days of the appearance of man, he began to influence the environment. And with the invention of more and more new tools, human civilization has increased its impact to a truly enormous scale. And at the present time several important issues How does man influence nature? What human actions harm the soil that provides us with basic food? What is the influence of man on the atmosphere we breathe?
At present, the impact of man on the world around him not only contributes to the development of our civilization, but often leads to the fact that appearance The planet is undergoing significant changes: rivers are drained and dry up, forests are cut down, new cities and factories appear in place of the plains, mountains are destroyed for the sake of new transport routes.
With the rapid increase in the population of the Earth, humanity needs more and more food, and with the rapid growth of production technologies, the production capacities of our civilization are growing, requiring more and more resources for processing and consumption, the development of more and more new territories.
Cities are growing, capturing more and more new lands from nature and displacing their natural inhabitants from there: plants and animals.
This is interesting: in the chest?
Main reasons
The reasons for the negative impact of man on nature are:
All these factors have a significant and sometimes irreversible impact on the world around us. And more and more often a question arises before a person: what consequences will such an influence eventually lead to? Will we eventually turn our planet into a waterless desert, unsuitable for existence? How can a person minimize the negative effects of his influence on the world? The inconsistency of human impact on the natural environment in our time is becoming a subject of discussion at the international level.
Negative and controversial factors
In addition to the obvious positive human impact on the environment, there are significant disadvantages of such interaction:
- Destruction large areas forests by cutting them out. This influence is connected, first of all, with the development of the transport industry - a person needs more and more new highways. In addition, wood is actively used in the paper industry and other industries.
- wide application of chemical fertilizers V agriculture actively contributes to the rapid contamination of the soil.
- Widely developed network industrial productions their emissions harmful substances into the atmosphere and water are not only the cause of environmental pollution, but also contribute to the death of entire species of fish, birds and plants.
- Rapidly growing cities and industrial centers significantly affect the change in the external living conditions of animals, the reduction of their natural habitat and the reduction of the populations of various species themselves.
Also, one cannot ignore man-made disasters that can cause irreversible harm not only separate species flora or fauna, but entire regions of the planet. For example, after the famous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, until now large area Ukraine is uninhabitable. The level of radiation in this area exceeds the maximum permissible norms by dozens of times.
Also, the leakage of water contaminated with radiation from the reactor of a nuclear power plant in the city of Fukushima could lead to an environmental catastrophe on a global scale. The damage that this heavy contaminated water could do ecological system world ocean, would be simply irreplaceable.
And the construction of conventional hydroelectric power plants does no less harm to the environment. Indeed, for their construction it is necessary to build a dam and flood a large area of adjacent fields and forests. As a result of such human activity, not only the river and adjacent territories suffer, but also animal world living in these areas.
In addition, many mindlessly throw away garbage, polluting not only the soil, but also the waters of the oceans with their waste products. After all, light debris does not sink and remains on the surface of the water. And given that the decomposition period of some types of plastic is more than a dozen years, such floating "dirt islands" make it much more difficult to obtain oxygen and sunlight sea and river inhabitants. Therefore, entire populations of fish and animals have to migrate in search of new, more habitable territories. And many of them die in the process of searching.
Deforestation on the slopes of mountains makes them susceptible to erosion, as a result, the soil becomes loose, which can lead to destruction of the mountain range.
Yes, and to vital supplies fresh water people are negligent - daily polluting freshwater rivers with sewage and industrial waste.
Of course, the existence of a person on the planet brings her considerable benefits. In particular, it is people who carry out activities aimed at improving the ecological situation in the environment. On the territory of many countries, people organize nature reserves, parks and reserves, which allow not only to preserve the surrounding nature in its natural original form, but also contribute to the preservation and increase in the populations of rare and endangered species of animals and birds.
Special laws have been created to protect rare representatives of the nature around us from destruction. There are special services, funds and centers that fight against the destruction of animals and birds. Specialized associations of ecologists are also being created, the task of which is to fight for the reduction of emissions into the atmosphere that are harmful to the environment.
Security organizations
One of the most famous organizations fighting for the conservation of nature is Greenpease is an international organization created to save the environment for our descendants. The employees of Greenpease set themselves several main tasks:
- The fight against pollution of the world's oceans.
- Significant restriction on whaling.
- Reducing the scale of deforestation of the taiga in Siberia and much more.
With the development of civilization, humanity must look for alternative sources of energy: solar or space, to save life on Earth. Also great importance to preserve the nature around us, they have the construction of new canals and artificial water systems aimed at maintaining soil fertility. And to keep the air clean, many factories install specially designed filters to reduce the amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere.
Such reasonable and careful attitude to the world around us definitely has a positive impact on nature.
Every day, the positive impact of man on nature is increasing, and this cannot but affect the ecology of our entire planet. Therefore, the struggle of man for the preservation of rare species of flora and fauna, the preservation of rare species of plants is so important.
Mankind has no right to violate the natural balance and lead to the depletion of natural resources by its activities. To do this, it is necessary to control the extraction of minerals, carefully monitor and carefully treat the fresh water reserves on our planet. And it is very important to remember that it is we who are responsible for the world around us and it depends on us how our children and grandchildren will live!