Human Impacts On The Environment

Introduction to Geography
Bilingual Education Program – Social Studies emphasis
Human impacts on the

environment
The human population continues to grow, but the size of Earth and the resources
available for our use are limited. Humans greatly impact the world around them,
and our actions can and often do have dramatic and long-lasting consequences.
Humans Are Destructive
With over seven billion people on Earth, there's simply no way that humans can
exist without impacting our surroundings. We have come a long way from our
primitive ancestors, and with such evolutionary changes have come new tools
and technologies, but also new ways in which we affectthe ecosystems of Earth.
Everything we do, make, or use comes from nature in one way or another. We
cut down trees so we can build houses of wood. We remove water from lakes
and aquifers for drinking and cleaning.
We extract oil, coal, and natural gas from deep underground to power our cars,
cell phones, and computers. And we fulfill our dietary needs with both wild and
farmed plants and animals.
The use of all these resources is not without consequence. We are very good at
utilizing Earth's resources for our own benefit, sometimes too good in fact!
Through various means we have altered, destroyed, and even reconstructed
ecosystems and habitats all over the globe. And since everything on Earth is
connected to everything else, the effects of our actions often go beyond what we
initially see.
Global Climate Change
You have probably heard about climate change because this is a hot topic right
now for environmentalists, politicians, business, and even homeowners. There is
much scientific evidence showing that Earth's climate is changing at an
unprecedented rate. Global temperatures are rising, storms are becoming more
frequent and intense, the glaciers and polar ice caps are melting, and species
extinction rates are on the rise.
While these are all natural processes, much of the change that we are currently
observing is due to human activity. For example, emissions from cars, planes,
and power plants put large amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. When
present in the right amounts, greenhouse gases are beneficial because they
trap heat under the atmosphere and keep Earth warm enough to sustain life.
However, in the past century, greenhouse gas emissions have risen to

extraordinary levels in the atmosphere. The problem with this is that the current
concentrations are far too high and are trapping too much heat on Earth. This
leads to an overall increase in the temperature of the planet, which affects many
other components of our global climate system. This creates issues for Earth's
living organisms because each is adapted to a certain range of environmental
conditions. Climate change isn't just temperature change - it involves
precipitation, drought, atmospheric conditions, and more, and all of these affect
the survival of plants and animals on Earth.
Habitat Loss
The human population continues to grow, but Earth can only hold so many
people. There is afinite amount of available natural resources for our use and
only so much land we can inhabit. But there are billions of other organisms that
we need to share these resources and land with as well. We build new homes,
cities, and roads to accommodate the growing number of people living on our
planet, all of which require consumption of natural resources.
Unfortunately, this human alteration of habitats poses the single greatest threat
to biodiversity on Earth. Farming, development, deforestation, mining, and
environmental pollutants are extremely destructive to natural habitats. Roads are
often built without consideration to wildlife, and they tend to break or fragment
larger contiguous habitats into smaller disconnected ones.
Aquatic habitats are also at risk. Dams along rivers alter the natural hydrology,
which can do great damage to surrounding wetland and other freshwater
ecosystems. Marine habitat loss is on the rise due to increasing development
along coastal areas, and oil spills and ocean cargo accidents create an enormous
amount of dangerous pollution and garbage in our seas.
Overharvesting
Another issue with our use of natural resources is that we consume much more
than we actually need. This is especially true for industrialized nations. This also
poses a threat to our natural environment because we harvest organisms and
resources faster than their populations can recover, an issue called
overharvesting.
Many of the world's imperiled animal species are at risk because of

overharvesting. Sometimes this activity is legal, while at other times it is from
illegal poaching of such animals as elephants, rhinoceroses, and tigers. Fisheries
all over the globe are collapsing because of overharvesting, and this affects both
ecological biodiversity and human livelihoods. A large portion of the world's
population depends on these fisheries for their diets, but we are now having to
go farther offshore and search greater depths to collect our bounty.
Plant species are also suffering from overharvesting. Forests are being cleared
at an alarming rate,often for agricultural or grazing purposes. Some of the trees
in these forests are hundreds of years old and will not regenerate even within
your lifetime. Forests provide habitat for numerous animals, prevent soil erosion,
and take in carbon dioxide, which is one of those potentially harmful greenhouse
gases mentioned earlier. As you can see, this type of destruction has many
different impacts on the environment, some of which we may not even know yet.
Summary
With so many people on the planet, it's impossible for us not to leave our mark
on it. Unfortunately, our impact often has harmful consequences to the
environment around us. We're using natural resources faster than they can
regenerate, which impacts global habitats, plant and animal species, and oceanic
and atmospheric conditions.
The changes we are instilling on the natural world are occurring at an

unprecedented rate, which in turn affects us as well. By over utilizing the
resources we need for basic food and shelter requirements, we're putting
ourselves in a precarious position. What will the world be like for future
generations? And, will there be enough resources available to meet their basic
needs?
Source:
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Introduction to Geography

Bilingual Education Program – Social Studies emphasis

Human impacts on the

Humans Are Destructive

Global Climate Change

However, in the past century, greenhouse gas emissions have risen to

Many of the world's imperiled animal species are at risk because of

The changes we are instilling on the natural world are occurring at an

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