In recent years, the grave consequences of environmental problems have raised increasing concerns. Plenty of problems such as the rising of the global temperature, air and water pollution, energy crisis which are mainly caused by human activities have threatened the ecosystem. However, people are not often aware of how serious the issue is only until the worst results happen. In this easy, several critical problems will be listed respectively and after some corresponding solutions, there will be evaluations of solutions. Finally, this essay will end with a brief conclusion.
Climate change, also often called global warming, is a controversial issue that mainly refers to changes brought by human beings. Scientists agree the main cause of climate change is human activities which magnify the ‘greenhouse effect’ – a natural process in which gases in the atmosphere warm the Earth by trapping heat that is radiating towards space(Solomon, S. et al. (Eds.),2007)[1]. As for the reasons that cause global warming, the main concern of gas is carbon dioxide(CO2). Without human activities, the amount of carbon will keep an ecological balance in nature. Burning fossil fuels and natural gas or cut down forests without limitation, carbon accumulates and overloads our atmosphere, are all the direct causes of the consequences. It is reported that ice is melting all over the globe, typically in polar regions. As a result of this phenomenon, sea-levels have risen by approximately 17 centimeters globally since 1900. Also, it is predicted by scientists that a mass extinction of wildlife in the near future, especially species on polar regions like emperor penguins or polar bears have lost their inhabitants（IUCN,2009)[2]. Moreover, the impact of global warming also related to human beings. For instance, global warming has shifted the patterns of precipitation, which makes the wet places are getting wetter while the drought places are becoming more drought——may delay planting and harvesting so that it will threaten the production of crops, vegetables or livestock.
The origin reason of global warming is carbon emission. It is reported that nuclear power is one of the few technologies that can alleviate global warming by decreasing CO2 emission. In Japan, nuclear has been regarded as the main baseload power and broadly used in industries. However, until The Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, disabling of all nuclear reactors was taken into consideration. From this event, it is evident that there are not only few safety problems associated with severe accidents and nuclear threats but also some critical problems caused by generated radioactive materials and technologies like the production of the nuclear weapon as well as its contribution to global warming (Sekimoto, H.,2016)[3]. For another, the most efficient and essential way to mitigate climate change is reducing the use of fossil fuels, especially intensive coal mainly composed of carbon. Multiple studies have demonstrated that renewable sources like solar, geothermal and bioenergy are available around the world which can meet the vast majority of our energy need. For another, trying to tackle climate change is the responsibility of the whole world. All the countries should work together and take practical action. A successful compact on global warming should contain the financial assistance from richer countries to poor areas to help each other to ensure a sustainable development together, which can be regarded as, hopefully, a long-term solution.
Another grave problems are energy crisis and deforestation. All results of these phenomena can be summed as the natural resources of the earth is limited whereas human beings are still overusing them may because of the lack of cognition of rational use or just because of the population explosion. According to Rinkesh:
‘The energy crisis is the concern that the world’s demands on the limited natural resources that are used to power industrial society are diminishing as the demand rises’. [4] Overconsumption, overpopulation or wastage of energy are all the causes of the energy crisis.
With the world growing at a pace hard to match, demands for space cannot be met with the natural environment. The desperate need for land for agricultural, industrial and most important urban needs to contain cities and their growing population a direct action that we have come to recognize as “Deforestation” occurs. Agricultural activities are one of the major reasons for it. People are overgrowing in order to satisfy the large demand for food products. Therefore, a huge number of trees has been falling down to grow crops and animal husbandry. What is more, overpopulation also affects forests cover, as with the expansion of cities more land is needed to construct buildings and fundamental infrastructure, which is also called “urbanization”. Consequently, it will aggravate global warming because trees play significant roles in climate change by utilizing the green house gas, restoring the balance in the atmosphere[6]. Also, floods, soil erosion and the extinction of wildlife will occur at the same time.
Then, how to solve these problems? As both global warming and energy crisis are related to the usage of energy, moving fossil fuels towards renewable resources such as solar, steam, wind is the first priority that human beings have to improve because the major concern is not the exhaustion of oil or gas but the pollution of burning fossil fuels and the destruction in the process of mining the coals. The most effective solution of deforestation is to make some policies or even laws to curb the felling of trees. However, although it is the best way to directly solve the problems and retrain the reduction of the number of trees, enacting laws is inflexible to some extent while laws cannot be easily changed due to the environmental conditions or climate.
In conclusion, the negative effects of human activities have affected both climates, natural resources and ourselves. The awareness of paying more attention to reduce passive impacts for both individuals and institutions should be strengthened further.
Reference:
IPCC (2007) Summary for policymakers. In: Solomon, S. et al. (Eds.) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. The Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. and New York, USA.
Available at: NASA – Global Climate Change: http://climate.nasa.gov/ (Accessed: 20 August 2017)
IUCN (2009) Species and Climate Change: More than Just the Polar Bear. IUCN/Species Survival Commission. Cambridge, UK. Available at:
http://www.iucn.org/what/tpas/biodiversity/resources/publications/?4562/Species-and-Climate-Change
Sekimoto, H. (2016). Nuclear Power Generation. Energy Technology Roadmaps of Japan. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303688881_Nuclear_Power_Generation (Accessed: 20 August 2017)
Rinkesh (no date). What is the Energy Crisis? Available at: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-solutions-to-the-global-energy-crisis.php(Accessed: 20 August 2017)
Union of Concerned Scientists(2011) Climate Hot Map. Available at: http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-solutions/ (Accessed: 20 August 2017)
Rinkesh (no date).Deforestation: Compromises of a Growing World. Available at: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-deforestation.php(Accessed: 20 August 2017)