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Introduction 2

Air pollution 4

Deforestation 5

Acid rain 8

The “Green House Effect” 9

Water pollution 11

Toxic waste pollution 14

Environmental movements 16

Conclusion 21

Appendix 23

#1. Rates of deforestation 23

#2. Carbon Dioxide Emissions per Units of Economic Output 23

# 3 Increase of global surface temperature 24

References 25

Introduction

Pollution is probably the most important problem in the world today. One of the reasons it is so important to human beings is that we know that we brought about pollution. Unlike most of the other problems in the world, such as AIDS, pollution is a human creation. Since the beginning of time, whenever human beings changed their environment, they were greatly affected. Areas where pollution is extremely high encounter death rates and disease rates that are sometimes 15 or 20 times more than areas without pollution. Greedy corporations are pushing these problems to areas not ready to encounter this high level of pollution, and if something isn’t done soon to curtail these problems, we will all surely feel the longstanding effects they bring.

During the 1960’s, which I call the “Throwaway” era, Plastics and Styrofoam¹ were thrown away without a care, and now we are finally seeing what that kind of stupidity can cause. At first, children began to understand the drastic changes that the entire world was facing. The planet was changing, and adults were doing nothing to save it. Yet, the polluted planet was being handed to the younger generations, who, while more educated on the topic, were not sufficiently knowledgeable to control earth’s problems. Nowadays, children are leading the environmental revolution. More educated and smarter on the issues that the world is facing, children are changing the planet. Still, all the education in the world cannot counter the pressure that Big Business is putting on the globe. Chemicals, human wastes, toxic wastes, and other kinds of pollution are beyond repair in some cases. Corporations do not care about the planet; they are willing to trade off small environmental risks for jobs and success in individual communities. Of course, most people in those communities don’t realize that them taking a job with these companies is detrimental to their survival.

Whenever I think of pollution’s effect on the world, I think of its effect on innocent human beings. When someone becomes sick or dies of some kind of sickness brought about by pollution, their human rights come into question. I think human rights, although usually reserved for genocide or other acts of evil, can encompass pollution as well. Our human right is simply the right we have to live our lives as we please, to live our lives without being hurt or affected unless we want to, and the basic needs we as human beings have. Pollution brought about by other people on us is not our choice. Therefore, whenever an area where humans live is polluted, it is a violation of that person’s human rights.

Nowadays, in an age where people are starting to fight back against corruption, the average Joe is winning the battle with Big Business. Pollution is being taken on with a vengeance, and people are beginning to notice how nice it is to rid the place they live in of pollution. Laws are being passed day in and day out in order to help the average person in their battle with pollution.

In order to talk about the problems we face today, we must go back hundreds of years to take a look at the effects pollution had on human beings in the past. The Industrial Revolution in both America and Europe let factories pollute the air without regulation. Because of that, the air pollution in certain areas of the world is causing death to this day. Certain cities in the Northeast United States have air that sometimes has 5 or 10 times more soot in it than the International Standard. The English “Black Country” is aptly named that because of the color of the air. For years, people there have lived in an area with the lowest quality of life in Western Europe. “The average live expectancy in “Black Country”, England, is 10 years less than the rest of the country.”² The reason not much has been done to change that is because it has been that way for more than 100 years. One of the problems with pollution is that if it becomes common, then people stop caring.
Another problem stemming from years ago is waste disposal. For many years, human waste was just let out into rivers and streams, spreading disease and sickness. A prime example of that is London, England. “By the 1850’s, the Thames River was so polluted that it was portrayed in cartoons with Death rowing along it.”³ A public outcry then prompted the city to develop a proper sewage system, but years of damage had been done, and the river is still not clean to this day. Another problem dealing with waste disposal is the fact that human waste is still dumped into rivers, lakes, and oceans without the proper treatment. Although the oceans aren’t greatly affected by a small amount of waste, over time it could definitely begin to hurt human interests in them, such as the fishing industry. In rivers and lakes though, there is usually no way for the waste to find its way out of the water. Because of the water systems we use on earth, this could be highly dangerous. “Using dirty water can make everyday activities like washing clothes and bathing dangerous, due to the infection that lies within the bacteria that live on human waste.” (Johnstone, 9) If people continue to use dirty water, that disease will spread to unimaginable levels.

Air pollution

Pollution itself is a very broad category, and there are many different kinds of pollution. One of those is air pollution. Air pollution is probably the longest lasting type of pollution there is. Because of the Industrial Revolution, factories spewed out smoke and chemicals that had never been in contact with human lungs before. To this day the same problem remains. Air pollution, although regulated, cannot be contained in many cases. In certain areas of the world, air pollution is out of control.

Air pollution occurs when wastes dirty the make the air dirty. People produce most of the waste that cause air pollution. Such waste can be in the form of gases or be particulates (particles of solid or liquid manner). These substance result chiefly from burning fuel to power motor vehicles and to heat buildings. industrial processes and the burning of garbage also contribute to air pollution. Natural pollutants include ,pollen,soil particulates, dust, and naturally occuring gases. Also more causes of air pollution are forms of transportation such as automobiles,airplanes,ships, and trains.

It is the immediate effect of air pollution on urban atmospheres that is most noticeable and causes the strongest public reaction. The city of Los Angeles has been noted for both the extent of its air pollution and the actions undertaken for control. Los Angeles lies in a coastal plain, surrounded by mountains that restrict the inward sweep of air and that separate a desert from the coastal climate. Fog moving in from the ocean is normal to the city. Temperature inversions characterized by the establishment of a layer of warm air on top of a layer of cooler air prevent the air near the ground from rising.

Air Pollution has a negative impact on water quality. For the past 30 years, scientists have collected a considerable amount of convincing information demonstrating that air pollutants can be deposited on land and water, sometimes at great distances from their original sources, and can be an important contributor to declining water quality. These air pollutants can have undesirable health and environmental impacts, such as contaminated fish, harmful algal blooms, and unsafe drinking water. Researchers had found the sources of these air pollutants. They have worked diligently to improve the environment.

Factory and business owners have the ability to prevent air pollution. The government should take action, requiring equipment to cut down on hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. The little spent regulating equipment used in factories can go a long way saving billions on health problems and other related issues. Background Over 150 million people in the United States live in areas where the Environmental Protection Agency considers the air to be unhealthy. Air pollution is the presence in the atmosphere of harmful gases, liquids, or solids. Smog has been a problem in coal-burning areas for several centuries

Deforestation

At the present rate of tropical deforestation, the world's remaining tropical rainforests will vanish in just 30 years⁴.

Deforestation in the tropical areas of the world is following a course similar to the earlier clearing of the forests in Europe and North America, only advancing more rapidly.

Since just 1950, the world's population has more than doubled to more than 6 billion people, with the fastest population growth being in the tropics. Today, more than 3 billion people live in the tropics alone, more than lived in the entire world in 1950. To provide food, wood, fuel and resources for the world's rapidly growing population, and to make room for the exploding tropical population, the world's tropical rainforests are literally disappearing.

Even with tropical deforestation at an all-time high, tropical hardwood prices continue to climb as world demand for tropical hardwoods continues to grow. A single teak log for example can now bring as much as $20,000. Annual world consumption of tropical hardwoods is now more than 250 million cubic meters, or over 100 billion board feet, per year.

Southeast Asia until recently has been the largest source of supply for tropical hardwoods, but that area will largely be depleted within the next five years. All of the primary forests in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are gone. Ivory Coast's forests are essentially non-existent. Nigeria's forests have been decimated as well. As Asia's and Africa's tropical forests are depleted, consuming countries are turning increasing attention to Latin America and the Amazon, whose own rapidly growing population is also a source of pressure on the rainforests. Also, trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas, uranium, gold, iron, bauxite and other minerals, and millions of acres of potential farm land, lie under the Amazon, the largest area of rainforest remaining on Earth.

Amazon rainforests are being cleared on a vast scale for settlements, logging, gold mining, petroleum, cattle ranching, sugar cane (for gasohol), large hydro dams, and charcoal for smelting ore. Peasant farmers also clear the rainforest to have land for planting, by cutting the forest, and then in the dry season burning what they have cut.

During one month in 1995 for example, NASA satellite surveys of Brazil recorded 39,889 individual fires, up 370 percent from the same month of the prior year. In neighboring Bolivia the smoke is sometimes so thick that schools have to close and flights have to be delayed or canceled.

Scientists estimate that until as recently as 10,000 years ago, the world had 6 billion acres of tropical rainforests. By 1950, we had a little less than 2.8 billion acres of rainforest. It was then being cut down at the rate of about 10 to 15 million acres per year. Today we have less than 1.5 billion acres left, and we are clearing this remaining rainforest at the rate of 30 to 50 million acres per year, two to three times as rapidly as just a few decades ago.

If the present rate of tropical deforestation continues, there will be nearly no tropical rainforests left in just 30 years. Instead of holding steady however, the rate of deforestation is actually predicted to increase even further.

Scientists project that the rate of tropical deforestation will continue to increase for the next 10 to 15 years until there simply will not be enough forest left to sustain the rate of cutting.

The chart (see appendix #1) dramatically illustrates the fate of the world's rainforests.
As the world's population increases, and therefore the competition for land, food and resources also increase, it appears that the world's rainforests will continue to fall at an increasingly accelerating rate. The newest data dramatically confirms that:

• tropical deforestation is a very serious and growing problem. Scientists may disagree on the details, but they all agree that the implications for mankind are huge - in terms of possible global warming, increasing desertification (the world's deserts are now growing 27,000 square miles per year), and loss of biodiversity, to name a few

• we must do everything reasonable we can to protect the world's remaining rainforests

• one important way to help is to plant tropical hardwood trees for harvests, to produce tropical hardwoods that aren't taken from the natural rainforest

• as individuals, we may at times feel insignificant, but by working together, we can indeed make a difference

• and by being an example for others, we can multiply the result

The latest statistics also dramatically underscore the benefits of planting tropical hardwood plantations:

• as the world's population continues to increase in numbers and prosperity, the demand for beautiful tropical hardwoods will continue to grow rapidly

• as country after country in the tropics depletes its own supply of tropical forest and passes from being an exporter of tropical hardwoods to having to import wood to fulfill its domestic needs, international demand for tropical hardwoods will continue to grow dramatically

• as the world loses more and more rainforest, there will be a rising imperative to protect the small amount of rainforest remaining

• as international demand for tropical hardwoods increases and the availability of the natural rainforests as a source of supply of these hardwoods decreases, both because of continued harvesting and because the dwindling remaining forests will be increasingly protected, the prices of all tropical hardwoods will likely soar

• there is substantial opportunity in planting nearly any species of tropical hardwoods - and even more opportunity in planting tropical hardwoods that are sought after for their beauty or unique properties.

Acid rain

A further result of air pollution is acid rain. Acid rain basically appears when factories release high levels of sulfur into the air. The sulfur then combines with rainwater to form a weak sulfuric acid. Acid rain itself cannot harm humans, but it can harm our environment and our quality of life. Over time, the acid rain will kill plants, weaken structures and homes used by humans, and can even kill life in entire lakes and rivers. And since studies have yet to be completely conclusive, nobody knows how it affects us physically in the long run. One of the reasons it is such a threat is because it travels in the air and may fall on areas that did not produce it. Since acid rain can be prevented by government regulation, stopping the release of sulfur into the air is a definite first step to curbing acid rain.

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