Harming the Earth:
An In-Depth Look at Saving Our Planet
Life as we know it on Earth is in danger. Various forms of pollution such as fossil fuel consumption polluting our atmosphere, physical trash piling up on land and tainting our water sources and endangering plant and animal life are all contributing to the steady decline in Earth’s health. If we can’t reverse its effects, the entire human population, its governments and companies, plant and animal life, and the Earth itself will come to an end sooner than we would like. To find an effective solution, the human population needs to analyze just how much damage each is doing, and then systematically develop alternatives to ultimately help one another and our planet.
Pollution is one of the many problems plaguing Earth’s lifespan. Since the invention of the car, Humans have begun to exhaust non-renewable resources found on Earth such as natural gas and oils. The burning of natural gas directly harms the ozone layer, leading to an increase in the Greenhouse Effect, the trapping of the Sun’s warmth within our atmosphere because of damaged openings in the ozone. This is causing the Earth to gradually get hotter and hotter, melting the ice found at our poles and making warm places even hotter. These repercussions are immediate, as ice melting contributes to sea levels rising and places around the equator steadily increasing in temperature. In addition to air pollution, the ever-expanding Human population is stockpiling trash in landfills. As we continue to live on Earth, the amount of space we have is limited and the trash occupying these spaces of land continues to grow. This means if our trash output continues to stay the same or increase, the amount of land we have to expand into is decreasing. The trash deposited in these spaces isn’t the only place trash can be found. Pieces of trash can be and are deposited wherever the person polluting sees fit, meaning it can be found almost anywhere including urban centers and places of residence. In addition, as trash piles up in these landfills, some of the trash is deposited in water sources. Therefore, the trash can stay in a man-made water source that doesn’t flow, tainting the water immediately found at that source or be carried down a stream into a larger water source eventually flowing to our oceans. Upon reaching the ocean, the pollution acidifies the water and physical trash can potentially kill marine life such as turtles, dolphins, fish and more. Still standing water sources evaporate in the Sun and as this tainted water gets evaporated, rain clouds form full of what is known as acid rain. In tandem with atmospheric pollution that already exists, when this rain falls to earth it pollutes other water sources that might be cleaner and harm plant life that absorbs both the beneficial, and harmful nutrients found in this form of rain. Currently, nitrate pollution of water has become a worldwide problem and an important factor in ecosys...
