How human society is impacting the natural environment
Human society has been impacting on natural environment differently since the ancestral time to date. The natural environment has been modified through various human activities such as travel, agriculture, commercial networks, and urbanization. The impacts caused by human society on the natural environment are extensive in that researchers have accepted the facts natural environment untouched by society interference does not exist. Most of the impacts human activities have caused in the natural environment are negative as compared to the positive effects. These negatives impacts have severely altered the Earth, while human society remains to benefit much from the harms they cause on the environment. Therefore, this essay will discuss the comparison between the benefits human society get from the natural environment versus the negative effects environment experience from those activity humans are benefitting.
The industrial and domestic activities produce waste materials which are treated and released to the aquatic ecosystems. These treated waste materials contain biological impurities and a variety of toxic chemicals that can influence the natural environment. These biological contaminants like fungi, bacteria, and viruses can spread to the immediate environments, and insects arising from the waste can infect nearby water sources with pathogens (Naidoo, Vosloo, and Schoeman). Another impact caused by the industrial activities of the human being is global warming, which is a result of industries injecting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has altered hydrogeological cycles causing severe droughts, floods, storms, ecosystem disruption, and a rise in sea levels. Thus, human beings will benefit much from the industrial activities for development, whereas, these activities will leave the natural environment damaged and harmful for surrounding ecosystems.
The use of technology developed by human beings regularly causes unexpected and unavoidable impacts on the environment. Technology application impacts on the environment are perceived to be inevitable due to various reasons. First and foremost, provided that technologies’ purpose is to control, improve and exploit nature for the benefit of human beings, while the numerous natural processes have been enhanced and fine-tuned by evolution and any technology interruption on the natural processes can lead to negative consequences on the environment (Commoner). Secondly, the first law of thermodynamics and conservation of mass principle direct that when energy or material resources are influenced or shifted around by technology, environmental effects are unavoidable. Thirdly, the second law of thermodynamics states that order can be amplified inside a system simply by rising disorders outside the system (Huesemann). Thus, technologies are used to initiate order in the human society like buildings, transportation networks, and factories while increasing disorder in the environment. Therefore, human beings will use technology, creating disorders in the natural environment as they benefit from it while, on the other hand, the environment is destroyed.
Human beings’ activity of burning fossils to produce energy results to the creation of acid rain. Acid rain occurs in the formation of precipitation that contains high levels of nitric and sulfuric acids as snow or fog. This acid rain has severe several ecological effects on lakes, aquatic environments, streams and wetlands. Further, it destroys soil essential nutrients and forests making it difficult for trees and other plants to take in water causing vegetations destruction (Nunez). Apart from the acid rain affecting vegetation, ozone layer depletion also contributes to vegetation. It causes damage to vegetation when it enters the plant through leaf and scorches the tissues during plant respiration process (Ozone Effects on Plants). The Ultra-Violet rays’ occurs due to ozone depletion altering plants’ physiological and developmental processes and causing the change in timing of developmental phases, secondary metabolism, distribution of nutrients in plant and plant form (Health and Environmental Effects of Ozone Layer Depletion | US EPA). As it is witnessed in this discussion, human being profits in generating energy for themselves while the process leads to various negative impacts on the natural environment.
Human civilization has led to the decline in biodiversity in the ecosystem as it is estimated that about eighty-three percent of wild animals, eighty percent of marine animals, fifteen percent of fish, and fifty percent of plants have been lost (Carrington). Human civilization has forced about one million animals and plant species to extinction. When plant biodiversity declines, there is diminishing productivity experienced to remaining plants (Plumer). The reduction of biodiversity remains to be a threat to ecosystem productivity, and failure to appreciate and notice plants is an alarming trend for additional plants are put at the peril of extinction (Mckim). Human activities like farming, whereby about half of the habitable land is utilized for agriculture purposes, making it one of the major human activities causing plant extinction. It is clear human civilization has contributed significantly to biodiversity decline and resulting in extinction in the ecosystem while humans remain the winner and natural environment the losers.
Human actions have significantly contributed to habitat fragmentation in the ecosystem. Habitat fragmentation is the regression of huge tracts of habitat resulting in habitat loss, which has majorly contributed to biodiversity loss and degradation of the ecosystem globally. According to (Fleischer), around seventy-seven percent of land and eighty-seven percent of oceans have been transformed by anthropogenic activity, while twenty-three percent of Earth remains desert. If habitat destruction occurs, it means there will be low pollination causing low crop yield. Thus, destroying animals seriously affects plant species, which depends on them (Datta). Therefore, human activities are intensely influencing environmental degradation at the expense of making development for themselves while the environment is severely damaged and uncared.
Military activities have contributed to the threat environment is facing as the United States is considered to be the leading country in military polluting the environment whereby it has more than thirty-nine thousand sites infected with hazardous elements (Nazaryan). Numerous researches have identified a deep connection between military spending and emissions of carbon, where huge military spending causes intense consequences on mounting carbon emissions in the atmosphere (Bradford). These military activities are extremely resource-intensive affect the way land is used. Some of the military activities like unexploded ammunition and the use of modern technology in war can render land useless or make it dangerous in the case of nuclear materials used, causing greater devastation on the natural environment. If some of the military activities are reduced and limited to using deadly weapons like nuclear, environmental threats can be reduced, but due to humans’ selfish interest, natural environment threats will continue.
Other activities that human beings have participated in to continue to make natural environments suffer are transportation, which involves roads, construction, shipping, and aviation. Both road and aviation sections of transportation have contributed to air pollution in the environment, increasing levels of carbon concentration, which is dangerous to the ecosystem. During road construction, numerous activities that intensive with the use of heavy machines cause distraction and destabilization of earth cores only to serve the purpose of human beings. On the other hand, the shipping section is severely causing havoc in water bodies, especially oceans where oil pollution has negatively affected not only water but also maritime organisms. Another dangerous activity is manufacturing, where things like paints, paper, plastics, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals products are produced. In terms of paints manufactured, there has been the use of lead and additive elements that are harmful to the environment. Paper manufacturing has posed threats to the environment when there is wood harvesting contributing to the deforestation situation of the ecosystem. Whereas, pesticides use and when it leaks from storage and production sites has contributed to contamination of water and land. Lastly, plastics components use has contributed mainly to water contamination, whereby researchers have suggested by 2050 plastics could be more in the ocean than fish.
In conclusion, human society has caused devastating impacts to the natural environment over the years and gained much from the harms they expose to the environment. From the discussion above, it is clearly evident that almost all activities that human beings engage in for their own selfish interest subject ecosystem to dangers. Human activities such as industrialization, technology evolution, fossils burning, human civilization, military activities, transportation, manufacturing, among other activities, have caused disorders to the ecosystem. Therefore, human society has caused a lot of negative effects on the natural environment than the positive effects. Further, humans have benefitted much from the activities they involve environment while causing many negative impacts. Thus, it will be of good course if human society tries to reduce participating in dangerous activities that put the environment at high risks but involve in those that will also benefit the ecosystem.
Works Cited
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Carrington, Damian. “Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals-study.” 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study. Accessed Aug 1, 2020.
Commoner, Barry. “The Closing Cycle -Nature, Man And Technology”. Files.Eric.Ed.Gov, 2020, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED114350.pdf. Accessed Aug 1, 2020
Datta, Sreela. The Effects of Habitat Destruction of the Environment, 2018. https://sciencing.com/effects-habitat-destruction-environment-8403681.html. Accessed Aug 1, 2020.
Fleicher, Evan. Report: Just 23% of Earth’s wilderness remains, 2019. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0437/2830/6330/files/98549535712.pdf. Accessed Aug 1, 2020
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Nunez, Christina. Acid rain, explained, 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/acid-rain/. Accessed Aug 1, 2020.
Naidoo, S., Vosloo, D., & Schoeman, C. Pollutant exposure at wastewater treatment works affects the detoxification organs of an urban adapter, the Banana Bat. Environmental Pollution, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2015.09.056. Accessed Aug 1, 2020.
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Plumer, Brad. “Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an ‘Unprecedented’ Pace.” 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/Climate/biodiversity-extinction-united-nations.html. Accessed Aug 1, 2020