Environmental Pollution Essay Research Paper ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTIONAutomobiles

Environmental Pollution Essay, Research Paper ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION Automobiles like these are around the world everyday, and their exhaust destroys our air everyday. Our environment is a major aspect of our life today. Many of us don’t take our Earth seriously and think that as long as pollution doesn’t hurt them they can go ahead and throw garbage on the ground or spill oil down the drain. Well to many people have that theory and they are killing off our Earth and also physically harming themselves from the air they breath and the water they swim in. Our Earth is fragile like a human and people don’t know. There are many different types of environmental pollution (e.g. Water, air, atmospheric.) Scientists believe that all cities with populations exceeding 50,000 have some degree of air pollution. Burning garbage in open dumps causes air pollution, and also it smells pretty bad. Air pollution comes from many different sources. One of the major sources is carbon monoxide which manly comes from automobiles, but also burning of fossil fuels, CFCs etc. Air pollution does not leave the Earth it all gets trapped up in the atmosphere. This doesn’t bother most people, and they think that it will not harm them. People burn down forests and people burn fossil fuels, and CFCs from aerosols. Every bit of this harms our atmosphere. Factories and transportation depend on huge amounts of fuel billions of tons of coal and oil are consumed around the world every year. When these fuels burn they introduce smoke and other, less visible, by-products into the atmosphere. Although wind and rain occasionally wash away the smoke given off by power plants and automobiles, the cumulative effe! ct of air pollution poses a grave threat to humans and the environment. A big example of smog is LA you can see the smog just hovering above the city. I don’t think any human alive should be subject to that kind of environment. Scientists believe that all cities with populations exceeding 50,000 have some degree of air pollution. Burning garbage in open dumps causes air pollution Scientist have discovered that over the South Pole the ozone has a high level of ozone depletion. A computer-enhanced map, taken from satellite observations of ozone levels in the atmosphere over the South Pole, shows the region of ozone depletion that has begun to appear each spring over Antarctica. When you look at this picture you can see the big red spot right above the South Pole. If this depletion opens up dangerous and deadly UV Rays from the sun will come into Earth. Air pollution causes global warming which scientist believe is making the Earth warmer and melting ice up in the South and North Pole. The country Holland has had water from the ocean got too high for them and flooded into towns. Holland spent millions of dollars to put up “dikes” which are big barriers in the water to prevent their town to be completely submerged. With the ocean getting deeper coastal cites all around the world could flood, billions of dollars would be spent to try to prevent it, but in a while it could not be stopped. Instead of waiting and having to spend all this money why don’t we put it together today and try different ways of preventing air pollution, it would be much easier than all the trouble of stopping flooding. Water pollution is another major aspect of environmental pollution. Water pollution is scary because over 75% of our Earth is covered by the ocean. Water pollution comes from many different sources around the world. One major pollutant that destroys the ocean is oil spills. The oil from an oil spill kills hundreds of sea animals from fish, to whales, to birds. Below is a small list of just some of the major oil spills. Notice how many tons were spilled into our ocean… Notable Oil Spills Date Location Description Tons spilled Jan.-June, 1942 East coast of U.S. German U-boat attacks on tankers after 590,000 March 18, 1967 Land’s End, Cornwall, England Grounding of ‘Torrey Canyon’ 119,000 June 13, 1968 South Africa Hull failure of ‘World Glory’ 46,000 Nov. 5, 1969 Massachusetts Hull failure of ‘Keo’ 30,000 March 20, 1970 Tr?lhavet Bay, Sweden Collision of ‘Othello’ with another ship 60,000 to 100,000 Dec. 19, 1972 Gulf of Oman Collision of ‘Sea Star’ with another ship 115,000 May 12, 1976 La Coruna, Spain Grounding of ‘Urquiola’ 100,000 Dec. 15, 1976 Nantucket, Mass. Grounding of ‘Argo Merchant’ 26,000 Feb. 25, 1977 Pacific Ocean Fire aboard ‘Hawaiian Patriot’ 99,000 March 16, 1978 Portsall, France Grounding of ‘Amoco Cadiz’ 223,000 July 19, 1979 Trinidad and Tobago Collision between ‘Atlantic Empress’ 300,000 Nov. 1, 1979 Galveston Bay, Tex. Collision of ‘Burmah Agate’ with 36,000 Aug. 6, 1983 Cape Town, South Africa Fire aboard ‘Castillo de Beliver’ 250,000 March 24, 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Grounding of ‘Exxon Valdez’ 34,000 Jan. 25, 1991 Sea Island, Kuwait Iraq deliberately dumped oil into 1,450,000* Dec. 3, 1992 Spain Grounding of ‘Aegean Sea’ 84,000 Jan. 5, 1993 Shetland Islands Grounding of ‘Braer’ 87,000 Over a million tons of oil has been spilled into the ocean, and we are not able to clean all the oil out. Most of the oil stays on the surface so when fish come up to the surface they get the oil on their body, and it gets into their body and gills. Birds land on the water to catch fish or take a break when the oil gets on their feathers and they are to weighted down to fly off, they later get to tired and just die from either poisoning from the oil or their body just not being able to take it. Another way our ocean is polluted is also from humans. We litter the ocean with garbage from boats and we pour oil down the storm drains. All the garbage is spread throughout the ocean and it poisons animals or fish, and birds get caught up in it. When those little plastic rings that hold soda cans together get into the water birds get them caught in their throats, fish get caught in them. There are many different things that can hurt the sea life. In this picture above you can see the way the fish in the sea are affected by our actions. Pollution in the sea also affects the food chain, fish, and organisms can die of then other fish can’t feed off the extinct fish, and so on. Preventing water pollution is such an easy task, not very hard, people just have to be aware of what they throw away our into the water, they can find a garbage can. I think that all kinds of environmental pollution can be stopped if we all use our heads and just think before we throw a piece of trash on the ground, throw it into a nearby garbage can. We should look at our Earth as a precious human being and treat it like it were a child of our own. We should not trash it and take advantage of it. If we abuse our Earth now who knows how it will get back at us in the future. Saving the Earth is such a simple task, and I think everyone should be involved in it rich or poor. If we don’t save our Earth now someday it will be to late. There are programs out there that try to save the Earth, but not enough people corporate in these programs. If more people supported and joined into these programs maybe our world wouldn’t be in such danger of dying. If our Earth dies it will surely take us all with it. Environmental Health, Carleson Lavonne Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1994 Acid Rain, Tyson Peter Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1992 Clean Water, Barass Karen Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1992 “Environmental Pollution” Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia 1996