In the early mornings, animals of all different species can be seen roaming around any normal suburban back yard. The common animals that can be observed are rabbits, squirrels, birds and many more. What if those animals slowly started to disappear never to be seen again? This is the sad truth that is starting to unfold on planet earth. Earth is currently undergoing one of the largest mass extinctions in the history books. Why is this not being placed on the front page of every newspaper? The answer to that question is time. Humans do not take as much notice of things that happen over the course of millions and billions of years, because those same humans will not be around long enough to see the damage that is being caused here and now. These extinctions happen over millions of years, and even a few species dying every year is enough to add up over the course of millions of years. With this waning state of diversity on the planet earth, how will it affect all of humankind. Together with all of these other species a web has been formed, and although it is an extremely large and convoluted web it is also very fragile. The biosphere of Earth is just one potential species death away from catastrophic consequences in some cases, but the issues are still not addressed. Humankind’s overuse of planetary resources is part of the problem, but it is definitely not the only problem. Every step we take can have a potentially devastating impact on the environment. A few of the main problems facing our decrease in biodiversity are pollution, natural habitat destruction, and unsafe environmental practices such as drilling for fossil fuels or various precious minerals. Something must be done to help conserve the biodiversity on Earth before the...
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...e the main culprits behind the towering extinction numbers are fossil fuels, it would seem a simple choice to eliminate them from use. Not only would this be infeasible to do in a complete and prompt way, but it would bring a slew of new problems economically and conceptually. Various solutions do need to be enacted with haste, but the solutions to the carbon problems need to be diminutive and farsighted in nature. Creating policy to better clean up our outputs while finding ways to slowly grasp our dependence back from fossil fuels. One of the ways in which the need for fossil fuels could be suppressed is to increase technology in renewable energies. Renewable energies such as hydrogen power and solar power are becoming more feasible every day as the cost of traditional energy increases, while the cost of energy produced by renewable sources is steadily decreasing.
Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Murphy, 1994). Genetic diversity within a species, which has taken 3.5 billion years to evolve, makes adaptations to these changing environments possible. Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of genetically diverse organisms is rapidly increasing, thus reducing this needed biodiversity, largely due to the human impacts of development and expansion. What was an average of one extinction per year before is now one extinction per hour and extinct species numbers are expected to reach approximately one million by the year 2000 (WWW site, Bio 65). As a result governmental and societal action must be taken immediately!
Our world is very unique. We share the world with all sorts of creatures from animals of all sizes, and shapes. Creatures that crawl, slide, run, swim, fly, or burrow. As scientists expand their knowledge about the world they unmask many types of species living on this planet. Scientist has discovered about 1.7 million species, and 13,000 more species are being found every year. It is very rare to know that there are many unknown animals, such as large birds or even mammals, but there could be million little creatures wanting to be discovered such as insects, spiders, shellfish, and even worms. As we share our world with many animals is very heartbreaking to know that we are also destroying their habitat and making their way of
Gloria Reuben once stated, “Mother Nature's mercy and forgiveness have run dry, as we ceaselessly abuse her and take her for granted in order for us to continue our addiction to using fossil fuels.” Reuben is suggesting that the addiction to burning fossil fuels abuses nature consistently and humans take our natural resources for granted. The world has a heavy dependency upon fossil fuels such as oil, methane, coal, gas and petroleum. As population and industry grows and reliance on these non-renewable energy sources multiplies, how are fossil fuels negatively impacting Earth? The adverse effects of fossil fuels is staggering. Fossil fuels are responsible for human fatalities, gargantuan environmental risks and environmental hazards. Stepping toward renewable energy resources and cutting fossil fuel emissions creates a greener, cleaner and safer planet for all.
Mass extinction defined by David Jablonski, American professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago is, “the substantial biodiversity losses that occur rapidly and are global in extent” (Kolbert, 2014) But how exactly is the seriousness of the current species loss that could actually be compared to the definition aforesaid? Though the exact number of species on earth is too complicated to be calculated, researchers have been trying to figure out some ways to estimate the numbers. The extinction rate today estimated by experts is to be between 1000 and 10000 times higher than the rate if human have not been around (background rate) reflecting the harm that are done by human activities is not imagined and indeed very serious. (Thomas et al., 2004) For ...
The 21st century is heavily reliant on burning of fossil fuels, from fueling airplanes, to cars, all the way down to factories. Although the burning of these fuels is helping us advance, it is also harming the planet in ways that no one can imagine. With the planet using over 82.4 million barrels of fossil fuels being used each and every day, there is a need for change, fast. Society must adapt and change in order to successfully preserve the planet, because as of now it is our only home. You might be thinking how one might solve the issue at hand, this is quite simple actually.
One calculation predicted that if the current rate of human disruption of the biosphere continues, one-half of Earth's higher lifeforms will be extinct by the year 2100. At the present time, the rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the historically typical rate of extinction of life forms on the planet. This means that the rate of extinction in the Anthropocene extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of
Over the last two centuries, humanity has become increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. Over that time, the consequences of constantly burning fossil fuels have accumulated into a threat to industrialized cities. The burning of fossil fuels causes acid rain to shower on cities and ecosystems around the world, tormenting their inhabitants. The increasingly deadly pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels has caused the deaths of many people around the world by causing respiratory problems. Not only has the pollution worsened, but the supply of fossil fuels is not limitless – as humanity’s reliance increases the supply decreases, and that is all the more reason to break humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels should be replaced with cleaner alternatives because fossil fuels cause environmental hazards, are non-renewable, and are detrimental to human health.
Many of the issues of biodiversity loss can be traced back to human interaction to the environment. One of the issues is alteration and loss of habitats. A lot of this issue is based on the destruction of habitats and for the land to be used for human consumption. The land is either used up for agricultural use or for neighborhoods. Destroying habitats and building them for our own use can have a positive impact on our way of living but a negative impact on the environment. We would gain land for building land for crops and communities to be built. The habitat for the animals would be destroyed and the species local to the land would either relocate or die. There are restrictions to deforesting land and there are organizations to help protect the land.
The degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity is increasing at an alarming rate every year. Humans are certainly not the only reason for this, but they are the main contributors. The well-being of ecosystems affects our everyday lives - consumption and consumerism depend on natural resources. Everything humans use is derived from them, in seemingly indirect and direct ways. Yet despite the fact that humans are destroying the environment, many continue to and neglect to take important measures to protect it.
Biodiversity loss can occur in many ways and this cause is very bad for the human , and the other species and the environment. These can lead down the surviving environment and mostly everyone living in that environment will suffer. There will be global warming, causing the earth to get warm and hot.
There needs to be a reduction if not extinction with the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), per-fluorocarbons (PFCs) and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere because it is directly affecting global warming. The combustion of fossil fuels and greenhouse emissions mainly contribute to the increase of these gases. The longer we go without solving this global problem the more conflicts we will have in the future. Although global warming does make the earth warmer there is more to worry about than heating to death. Major concerns revolve around effects on agriculture, water resources, ocean level and coastal regions, and disease. Many scientists and experimenters still disagree with global warming using excuses such as ‘primitive’ climate models, which predict global warming trends, can not accurately simulate the Earth; it is too difficult because there are thousands of variables to consider. With the issue of global warming alternative sources of energy are looked for. “Data indicates that hydrogen is [the] only suitable future fuel.” (Williams, 102). Many scientists agree, but how long will it take for us to get there?
Everyone’s all seen those wildlife shows on tv. The shows on National Geographic and such, showing animals in beautiful environments, everything lush and growing and nothing at all wrong that could threaten these creatures and places. But, have anyone seen the other side? The side where all these beautiful creatures and plants starve, are decimated by predators that have never been there before, and sometime even become poisoned by their very own homes and habitats? Of course no one has. That doesn’t mean that its not happening. It is happening, and its happening everywhere. And guess who is to blame? People. Society. Humans as a race pollute the environment, hunt animals simply for their parts, fish way more than humans will ever need just for the sake of money, introduce new species to new places for our own gain, and even purposefully destroy entire regions just for human expansion. And its starting to take its toll. While it is true that nature is constantly in flux and certain species come and go, humans are causing more species to disappear in the past few hundred years then nature has ever caused since the age of the dinosaurs, and therefore it is up to humans to repair the damage caused, be it cleaning the environment and habitats of these creatures, or taking more direct action to protect and preserve the species that are on the brink of extinction.
Nowadays it is common to read articles in newspapers and magazines regarding biodiversity issues. Human beings have been knowingly and unknowingly destroying biodiversity since their existence. Biodiversity is the measure of the variety of species of animals living in an area. Forests are usually areas with high biodiversity while deserts are the opposite. Human beings have always destroyed biodiversity either by deforestation, or by some other means. Biodiversity depletion is a natural phenomenon. But the present levels of biodiversity depletion are many times higher than the natural rate. Recently the levels of loss in biodiversity have started causing global concern. Some of the main causes for loss in biodiversity are alteration of habitats, increasing levels of pollution and human population growth.
Fossil fuels are energy that is in the form of coal, oil, or natural gas that comes from organisms from millions of years ago. The cycle to create fossil fuels takes millions of years to form and is therefore considered a nonrenewable resource of energy. Fossil fuels have been the primary source of energy for man ever since the age of machines, but one of “the main problem[s] with fossil fuels is that there is a limited amount of them” (Problem with Fossil Fuel). As countries become more developed, like the United States, they too will become more thirsty and dependent for fossil fuels. “In 2004, America spent approximately $270 billion to fufill its oil need.” and “90% of all transportation is fueled by oil” (Nakaya 10). With the global rate of fossil fuels going up it is inevitable that they are going to run out, forcing countries to choose an alternative energy source. The other huge problem with dependence on fossil fuels is the effect that the emissions have on the climate. Fossil fuels are made of carbon chains and in order for the reaction...
Biodiversity is so important that if any chain or link is disturbed then the whole system will come to a halt. Biodiversity also boosts ecosystem productivity and if it declines automatically our ecosystem also declines as both are interdependent upon each other, where all the species play an essential role in the way ecosystem functions, so local and global species loss could threaten the stability of the ecosystem services on which humans depend. This is an interesting topic as well as a global issue concerning the whole human civilization and their existence. . The said issue as well as many other issues regarding our natural processes cannot be neglected as our present and future depends entirely on the sustainability and growth of this ecosystem and biodiversity. Our ecosystem completely depends on the way biodiversity functions. This is the reason I have chosen this topic and gathered information about how it e...