How man destroys the environment. How man kills the planet How man destroys nature examples
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 hoping to buy something. In the end, you choose chicken and a prepared salad and return home to enjoy your meal.
Let's look at how a seemingly harmless trip to the store impacts the environment.
First, driving a car contributed to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The electricity in the store is nothing more than the result of burning coal, the mining of which has devastated the Appalachian ecosystem.
The salad ingredients were farmed and treated with pesticides, which then entered waterways, poisoning fish and aquatic plants (which help keep the air clean).
The chicken was raised on a very 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 garbage and the origins of our food all place enormous pressure on the environment.
Looking at the problem at a societal level, it can be noted that human behavior has significantly impacted the environment. The Earth's temperature has increased by one degree Fahrenheit since 1975, and the amount of polar ice has decreased by 9 percent in just one decade.
We have caused enormous damage to the planet, much more than you can imagine. Construction, irrigation, and mining significantly spoil the natural landscape and disrupt the flow of important ecological processes. Aggressive fishing and hunting can deplete species, 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 actually work to benefit the public. For example, dam projects in China, designed to produce clean energy, have devastated the surrounding area, causing flooding in cities and environmental waste areas, greatly increasing the risk of natural disasters.
In 2007, China completed 20 years of construction of the world's largest hydroelectric dam, called the Three Gorges Dam. During the implementation of this project, more than 1.2 million people had to leave their usual habitats, as 13 large cities, 140 ordinary towns and 1,350 villages were flooded. Hundreds of factories, mines, dumps and industrial centers were also flooded, plus the main reservoirs were heavily polluted. The project altered the ecosystem of the Yangtze River, turning the once mighty river into a stagnant basin, thereby wiping out much of the native flora and fauna.
Diverted rivers also significantly increase the risk of landslides along banks that are home to hundreds of thousands of people. According to forecasts, about half a million people living along the river are planning to be resettled by 2020, as landslides are inevitable and the ecosystem will continue to be depleted.
Scientists have recently linked dam construction to earthquakes. The Three Gorges Reservoir was built on top of two major fault lines, with hundreds of minor tremors occurring since its opening. Scientists have suggested that the catastrophic 2008 earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan, 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 earthquake. The phenomenon of dams causing earthquakes is due to the water pressure created beneath the reservoir, which in turn increases the pressure in the 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 such an extent that experts fear for the ability of many species to rebuild their populations on their own.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, global fish catches exceed the permissible limit by 2.5 times. More than half of the world's fish stocks and species have already been depleted, and one quarter of species are overdepleted. 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, the stocks of these fish will disappear by 2048.
It is worth noting that the main culprit is advances in fishing technology. Today, commercial fishing vessels are mostly equipped with fish-finding sonar. Once they find the right spot, fishermen release huge nets, the size of three football fields, that can sweep up all the fish in a few minutes. Thus, with this approach, fish populations could be reduced by 80 percent in 10-15 years.
8. Invasive species
Throughout the founding era, man himself has been a distributor of invasive species. Even though it may seem like your beloved pet or plant is doing much better in its new location, the natural balance is actually being disrupted. Invasive flora and fauna have been proven to be the most destructive thing humanity has done to the environment.
In the United States, 400 of the 958 species are listed as endangered because they are considered at risk due to competition with invasive alien species.
Invasive species problems mostly affect invertebrate animals. For example, in the first half of the 20th century, the 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 industry
The biggest threat posed by coal mining is climate change, but it also threatens local ecosystems.
Market realities pose serious threats to coal, especially in the United States. Coal is a cheap source of energy - one megawatt of energy produced by coal costs $20-30, as opposed to one megawatt produced by 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 mining coal from mountaintops and using gas. In the first case, miners can "cut down" more than 305 meters of a mountain peak in order to reach a coal deposit. Mining using gas occurs when the 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.
Every practice of this kind creates a large amount of waste along the way. Vast damaged and old forest areas are being dumped into nearby valleys. In the US alone, in West Virginia, it is estimated that more than 121,405 hectares of hardwood forests have been destroyed by coal mining. 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” still remains open. Typically, mining companies simply dump unwanted trees, dead wildlife, etc. into nearby valleys, which in turn not only destroys natural ecosystems, but also causes the drying up of large rivers. Industrial waste from mines finds refuge in river beds.
6. Human disasters
Although most of the ways in which humans harm the environment develop over several years, some events can happen in an instant, but that instant will have far-reaching consequences.
The 1989 oil spill in Prince Williams Sound, Alaska, had devastating consequences. About 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled and killed more than 25,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 seals, 250 eagles, about 22 killer whales, and billions of salmon and herring. At least two species, the Pacific herring and the guillemot, did not recover from the disaster.
It's too early to assess the damage to wildlife caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the scale of the disaster is unlike anything seen before in American history. For several days, more than 9.5 million liters of oil per day leaked into the Gulf - the largest spill in American history. By most estimates, damage to wildlife is still lower than the 1989 spill due to lower species density. However, despite this, there is no doubt that the damage from the spill will continue 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 greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from cars. There are 232 million cars on this country's roads, very few of which are powered by electricity, and the average car consumes about 2,271 liters of gasoline annually.
One car emits about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the form of exhaust fumes. In order to clear 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 occurs in a car engine produces fine particles of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide. In large quantities, these chemicals can harm a person's respiratory system, causing coughing and suffocation. 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, oil production, which is necessary to create fuel and oil to move a car, in turn, also has a serious impact on the environment. Land-based drilling is displacing native species, and offshore drilling and subsequent transportation has created an incredible amount of problems over the years, with more than 40 million gallons of oil spilled around the world since 1978.
4. Unsustainable agriculture
In all the ways humanity harms the environment, there is one common theme: we are failing 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, agricultural practices are responsible for 70 percent of the pollution in the country's rivers and streams. Chemical runoff, contaminated soil, animal waste all end up in waterways, of which more than 173,000 miles are already in poor condition. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides increase nitrogen levels and decrease oxygen levels in water.
Pesticides used to protect crops from predators threaten the survival of some species of birds and insects. 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, bees' immune systems are weakened, making them more vulnerable to the enemy.
Large-scale industrial agriculture also contributes to global warming. The vast majority of meat products in the world are produced on factory farms. On any farm, tens of thousands of livestock are concentrated in small areas to save space. Among other things, when unprocessed animal waste is destroyed, harmful gases are released, including methane, which, in turn, has a significant impact on the process of global warming.
3. Deforestation
There was a time when most of the 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 primary forest, that is, land not occupied or damaged by human activity. Seventy percent of the planet's animals and plants live in forests, and, accordingly, if they lose their home, they themselves will be at risk of extinction as a species.
The problem is particularly acute in tropical rainforests with humid climates. Such forests cover 7 percent of the world's land area and provide homes for about half of all species on the planet. At current rates of deforestation, scientists estimate that tropical forests will be wiped out in about 100 years.
Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees absorb greenhouse gases, so fewer trees mean 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 greater fluctuations in global temperatures. When forests burn, trees release carbon into the atmosphere, which also contributes to global warming. Scientists estimate that the trees of the Amazon forest processed the equivalent of 10 years of human activity.
Poverty is one of the main causes of deforestation. Most tropical forests are in third world countries, and politicians there regularly stimulate economic development in weak regions. Thus, loggers and farmers are slowly but surely doing their job. In most cases, deforestation occurs due to the need to create a farm plot. A farmer typically burns trees and vegetation to produce ash, which can then be used as fertilizer. This process is called slash-and-burn farming. Among other things, the risk of soil erosion and flooding increases as nutrients from the soil evaporate over several years, and the land is often unable to support the crops planted for which the trees were cut down.
2. Global warming
The average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 130 years. Ice caps are melting at an alarming rate—more than 20 percent of the world's ice has disappeared since 1979. Sea levels are rising, causing floods and having a significant impact on the catastrophic natural disasters that are increasingly occurring around the world.
Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, in which certain gases release 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 United States. Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels, mainly when running cars and when factories are powered by 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 impacts 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. Overcrowding
"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. "Unless we can do humane family planning ourselves reduce the population, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics and famine,” he adds.
Over the past 40 years, the world population has grown from 3 to 6.7 billion. 75 million people (equivalent to the population of Germany) are added annually, or more than 200,000 people 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 needs for electricity, cars, etc. 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 increasingly harm already fragile ecosystems. Forests will be removed almost entirely as cities continually expand and new areas for farmland are needed. The list of endangered species will become longer and 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.
A couple of centuries ago, man was still a part of nature and lived in harmony with it, because the main population lived in. And village residents have always perceived themselves as part of the world around them. Hunters killed animals when they needed to get meat for food and skins for clothing. Animals have never been exterminated for fun. The land was treated with respect and care, because it is the main breadwinner. There were no factories in the villages, no forests were cut down, no toxic waste was dumped into the rivers. But environmental problems on the planet did not begin suddenly and not yesterday. Remember the whales, which were almost all exterminated because Europeans needed materials to make corsets. And no self-respecting woman left home without them. And the vast majority of men had a noble posture not because of strong, trained muscles, but thanks to the same corsets. And what did gentle and brave young ladies in rainy London or hot Madrid care about some distant and unknown whales? Over the past centuries, the population has increased sharply. Cities with a population of one million grew. The volume of industrial production has increased hundreds, or even thousands of times. Forests are being destroyed, animals are being destroyed, the water in rivers and lakes is polluted; in order to breathe clean air, city residents have to travel far outside the city. This is retribution for the benefits of civilization. Who wants to grow bread today, bake in winter, walk tens of kilometers and sew clothes themselves? There are eccentrics who build eco-villages and try to maintain an almost primitive communal system. But how many are there compared to the rest of the Earth's population? People want to live in comfort, and therefore they turn a blind eye to many things. Life is already full of stress to think seriously about ozone holes. Who really cares about the extinction of some animals in the Ussuri taiga or the death of the Aral Sea? Here you need to pay off your mortgage faster and change the tires on your car. What kind of tigers or whales are there? Not up to them. And an official sitting in a huge office on the top floor of a building made of stone and concrete, and giving orders to cut down several hectares of forest, does not consider himself a criminal and a destroyer of nature. He has not seen this forest and will never see it. What difference does it make to him that several species of animals will die there, because their natural habitat will be destroyed. But a personal bank account is close and understandable. And such people are not monsters with hooves and tails. No, these are often loving fathers of the family and witty interlocutors. Most likely, they have a favorite dog with whom they like to run in the morning or an affectionate cat. And in general they love animals. But they love themselves and their comfort more. No matter how detached a person is from nature, he still remains a part of it. By destroying nature, humanity is slowly and systematically destroying itself. People suffer from diseases that few people knew about 50 years ago. Allergies, stress and phobias have become a real scourge of modern society. What will happen next? Nobody can predict. One thing is clear - we need to change our attitude towards the world around us. If it's not too late.
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 photographs that appear in the press from time to time are not able to convey the seriousness and scale of the pollution problem. This review contains little-known and shocking facts that make it possible to understand the seriousness of the problem.
1. 3 million plastic bottles
Earth
Every year, more than 6 billion kilograms of garbage are dumped into the world's oceans. Most of this trash 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. “Garbage Continent”
Pacific Ocean
Few people know this, but in the Pacific Ocean there is an entire “continent” of plastic waste known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. According to some estimates, the size of this plastic “garbage continent” could be twice the size of the United States.
3. 500 million cars
Earth
There are more than 500 million cars in the world today, and by 2030 this number is expected to rise to more than 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. At the same time, 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 massive, deadly oil spills occur 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 without any accidents).
6. Clean Antarctica
Antarctica
The only relatively clean place on Earth is Antarctica. The continent is protected by the Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits military activity, mining, nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal.
7. Beijing air
China
China is one of the countries with the highest levels of air pollution in the world. Simply breathing the air in Beijing increases your risk of lung cancer by exactly the same amount as smoking 21 cigarettes a day. In addition, nearly 700 million Chinese (about half the country's population) are forced to drink contaminated water.
8. Ganges River
India
Water pollution is even worse in India, where nearly 80% of all urban waste is dumped into the Ganges River, Hindus' most sacred river. Poor Indians also bury their dead family members in this river.
9. Lake Karachay
Russia
Lake Karachay, a radioactive waste dump from the former Soviet Union, located in the Chelyabinsk region, is the most contaminated place on Earth. If a person spends just 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 around the world, e-waste has been a growing problem in recent years. For example, in 2012 alone, people threw away almost 50 million tons of electronic waste.
11. A third of British fish change sex
England
Around a third of fish in British rivers change sex due to water pollution. Scientists believe that the main reason for this is hormones from waste in sewage, including birth control pills.
12. 80 thousand synthetic chemicals
Earth
In modern days, up to 500 chemicals have been discovered in the human body that were not present in it before 1920. Today, there are a total of almost 80 thousand synthetic chemicals on the market.
13. San Francisco gets 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 day and night, and scientists have found that light pollution can even change the migration patterns of some animal species.
Today people are looking for various ways to make their lives safer and production more environmentally friendly. So, .
We can endlessly talk about how much we all love nature, and meanwhile the rivers, lakes and forests of our country continue to suffer from pollution and construction...
1. Dvina-Pinega forest (Arkhangelsk region)
This forest is considered one of the largest lowland spruce forests in Europe, but today it is being actively cut down. Since 1990, the territory of the Dvina-Pinega forest has decreased by almost 30%.
Starichkov Island (Kamchatka Territory)
Fishing on an industrial scale destroys fish and crabs in the waters of the Avacha Bay, which is located near the Kamchatka island of Starichkov, which also affects the number of birds.
Southern Baikal (Irkutsk region, Republic of Buryatia)
The infamous Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill has been dumping production waste into the world's largest freshwater body of water for decades. Today the lake still needs cleaning.
Virgin forests of Komi (Komi Republic)
Komi forests continue to suffer from drilling and blasting operations carried out by gold miners.
Nenets Nature Reserve in the Pechora Sea (Nenets Autonomous Okrug)
The ecosystem of the unique reserve, according to WWF and Greenpeace forecasts, can be destroyed by the projects of the Gazprom Neft Shelf company, which is launching a platform here for the development of an oil field.
Mzymta River (Krasnodar region)
Olympic construction in the river area had a poisonous effect on the ecosystem of this place: Mzymta is polluted with arsenic, phenol and petroleum products.
Zhupanova River (Kamchatka Territory)
Environmentalists are sounding the alarm, because the planned construction of a cascade of small hydroelectric power stations will lead to part of the Zhupanova River basin being flooded, and the hydroelectric power station infrastructure will destroy not only part of the valley, but also its unique inhabitants, including wild reindeer.
Wetlands of the Kuban delta (Krasnodar region)
On the one hand, the wetlands of the Kuban delta suffer from industrial progress (oil and gas production and exploration, pesticide runoff), on the other hand, from the negligence of the population, poaching and landfills.
It's like footage from a disaster movie about the end of the world...
Everyone knows that human activities have a bad impact on the environment. But few can correctly imagine the scale of the harm we cause to nature. These photos will show you the problem as it really is.
When you see the consequences of deforestation or oil puddles in the ocean, you feel somehow uneasy. We have failed to wisely take advantage of the wealth that our planet has so generously given us. Today's deplorable state of the environment should finally bring some sense to us... After all, every person can help nature, at least by stopping harming it.
1. Melting glaciers in Norway.
2. Perhaps the Maldives will soon go under water, as the water level in the ocean is rising by leaps and bounds.
3. Parade in Germany. Looking at the crowds at such events, you realize how densely populated the world's major cities are.
4. Diamond mining site, Russia.
5. Surfer and wave of garbage, Indonesia.
6. Consequences of deforestation in Canada.
7. There are countless shipping containers in the port of Singapore.
8. An oil slick caught fire in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
9. Coal power stations in the UK
10. This is what a densely populated area in Mexico City, Mexico looks like. There is no trace left of nature...
Share these shocking images with your friends and remember to be mindful of your behavior towards the environment. Remember that even at the local level, a small change for the better can make a big difference! In any case, I want to believe that humanity will someday learn to live in harmony with nature...