In the past few decades, the environment has been suffering extensively from the recklessness of many people, and the law awareness people have regarding the well-being of the environment which is represented in using non-renewable energy resources, increasing the use of plastic products, excessive cutting down of trees (deforestation), and damaging natural habitats of living organisms conducing to their extinction. Each and every one of these aspects has significant adverse impacts which we gonna explore in details.
- Deforestation :
One of the most damaging actions that has been committed by a wide range of people and organisations all over the world for various reasons which are mainly economic ones like : using wood in paper industry , furniture industry , and using land of the forests in building new cities and cultivating crop plants.
Recently, there have been numerous cases of cutting down trees in different countries such as:
- Ernakulam and Kerala in India , and they have been met by a great wave of anger and opposition to radically stop this destroying action
- Loss of an estimated 5 million acres in Brazil’s amazon in 2020
- Forests in Eastern Africa especially in Kenya and Tanzania.
And it goes without saying that cutting these trees down had profound negative impacts on many levels:
- A vast number of animals and insects species consider trees and forests as their natural habitats ;thus, cutting trees down means that the natural living and breeding sites for these organisms will be lost causing extinction of these species and loss of environmental balance.
- As aforementioned there will be less food produced by the trees due to their low numbers which will lead to organic food scarcity and malnutrition of the youngsters and also the elderly people ;therefore, various detrimental disease that might contribute to death might be quite prevalent among a plethora of people in diverse nations and societies
- Finally, there will be less food products available for export which will have explicit adverse impacts on the economy of the countries which rely on exporting their locally produced products to other countries to enhance their financial status
So what are the possible remediation measures to entirely eliminate this inhumane action ?
- Replantation of trees : like replanting mangrove trees in Egypt
- Use of selective filling instead of clear filling which means that any company that gets a grant to cut down trees should cut down a small proportion of the trees to leave the rest of the trees in the forest to prevent any disturbance to this complicated ecosystem.
- Governments should set and apply strict rules on the excessive cutting down of trees , and there should be a financial penalty on those who do not abide by the rules.
- Use of non-renewable energy resources :
Have you ever wondered why are the global temperatures drastically rising annually? The answer is quite simple: Global warming
So what is Global warming?
Simply, it is the effect of some gases like : Co2 , and Nitorgen oxides on the absorption of light and heat energy from the sun , leading to considerable rise in the temperature of the outer atmosphere , and the global temperatures rose almost by 1.5 degrees in the past few years.
There are various sources of these harmful gases ;however, the vast majority of these gases originate from the burning of fuels and other energy resources which are not regarded as renewable (energy sources which can be regenerated or reused)
The real problem lies in the consequences of this phenomenon which are :
- Melting of polar ice caps which is a main reason behind the alarming rate of floodings that cause the death of an array of people and destruction of numerous houses and farmlands.
- Evaporation of water from water bodies which leads to formation of heavy rains that flooded the city of Zhengzhou in India and different parts in Belgium and London
- Extinction of rare species of plants and animals which cannot withstand the high temperatures.
In spite of the irreversible implications of global warming , there are various ways in which we could eliminate these hazardous effects and maintain the temperatures constant at this level :
- Raising people’s awareness by carrying out campaigns that highlight the great vitality of using clean and renewable energy resources that do not have any negative impacts on the environment
- Apply strict rules on the companies to use long chimneys with filters to prevent leakage of any harmful gases
- As aforementioned , the problem of deforestation should be radically solved , for it is a major cause behind the climate change
- Teenagers and youngsters should be encouraged to participate in programs related to this aspect to have future generations which are well-informed about this field , and are capable of introducing positive practices which may improve the current situation.
And above all , people and governments should collaborate together in local , national , and international levels to mitigate any menace to the well-being and balance of our environment.