Otázka: Environmental Issues
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): Maikl
Deforestation
- Deforestation is removal of forests or trees from a land and converting it for non-forest use.
- Trees are one of the most important aspects of our planet. They are not only important to environment, animals, humas, but also climate. Trees are habitats and shelters for millions of species. However, they are still depleted and cut at very fast rate.
Causes
Urban construstion
- Wood from trees is often used as a building material, for furniture or paper products.
Grazing land
- Trees are cut down to create a land for grazing cattle.
Agriculture
- Trees are cut to clear land for growing crops, building farms etc.
- Fuel
- In developing countries, wood is used as firewood (cooking and heating purposes)
Other:
- For oil and mining exploitation
- Making highways and roads
- Wildfires
- Acid rain
Effects
Erosion of soil
- Deforestation is a big problem, because it exposes the soil to the sun making it dry and eventually infertile. Therefore replanting trees isn’t always a possibility
Disruption of water cycle
- Trees have a large contribution in maintaining the water cycle. They draw water via roots and release it into the atmosphere.
Loss of biodiversity
- Unique biodiversity of various geographical areas is being lost very fast. Tropical rainforests are on 6 % of Earth’s surface, but 80 – 90 % whole world’s species exist there. 50 – 100 species of animals are being lost every day.
Solutions
- We should make our factories cleaner, monitor and reduce their emissions, not use motor vehicles so often, also do reforestation of lost areas and recycle.
Global warming
- It’s a term to describe an increase of average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. This is considered as a permanent change of Earth’s climate.
- There’re some debates among people on whether global warming is real or not. However, scientists say that the average temperature has risen by 0.4 to 0.8 °C over the past 100 years.
Causes
- The increased amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released into atmosphere by burning of fossil fuels, land clearing (deforestation), agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the main causes of global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap the heat making the Earth warmer.
Effects
Spread of disease
- As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing disease and plague with him.
Warmer waters and more hurricanes
- As temperature rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes (2004/2005).
Polar ice caps melting
- It will raise sea level. If all glaciers melted today, the seas would rise about 230 feet.
- Melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The ice caps are fresh water and when they melt, they will make water less salty.
- The temperature rises and changing landscape in the Arctic cycle will endanger several species of animals.
Solutions
Boosting energy efficiency
- The energy used to power, heat, and cool our homes, businesses and industries is the single largest contributor to global warming. Energy efficiency technologies allow us to use less energy to get the same level of production, service and comfort. This can save both energy and money and can be deployed quickly.
Greening transportation
- The transportation sector’s emissions have increased at a faster rate than any other energy-using sector over the past decade. A variety of solutions are at hand including improving efficiency (km/l) in all modes of transport. We should switch to low carbon fuels, vehicle miles traveled and make mass transportation more efficient.
