Module 4

GEE 108 Environmental

Science

Lesson 1
The Impact of Population Growth on the Environment
Learning Outcomes: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. describe the human impact in the environment

2. identify the factors of human impact in the environment
3. explain the progress in agriculture, engineering and medicine because of man’s
intervention with nature
4. cite adverse effects of people’s activities to the environment
5. cite the uses and sources of energy
6. explain energy crisis and conservation
7. explain alternative sources of energy
8. appreciate the responsibility of humans to protect the natural environment

Introduction
The human population is growing rapidly. Population growth and other factors such
as emerging technologies of every nation have had detrimental effect to the environment.
Humans threaten to make earth inhabitable as the population increases, more waste materials
are being produced, thus rapidly polluting the soil, air and water. This makes human activity
increasingly destroying the natural habitats, risking biodiversity and endangering future
species.

The impact of human activities have had on biodiversity shows negative and positive
impact on natural ecosystem.

Negative Impact
The quality of the air determines how well we breathe and live. Air pollutants and
other compounds and particulates decrease air quality and make each breathe hazard to
health.
One of the vital substances for the survival of living things is water. Water should be
free from polluting substances like pesticides, bacteria, heavy metals, and hydrocarbons. If
water becomes contaminated, life would be improbable to proliferate life.
Soil contamination also arises as it effects the growth and development of plants. If
there are pesticide dependency or other potentially hazardous chemicals that may be absorbed
by plants, agricultural soils will definitely contaminated.
 Waste products from household, commercial and/or industrial processes are deposited
from soil and /or water that threatens the processes of soil resources and water bearing
diversity in marine life.

Positive Impact
Human activities also show positive impacts towards the natural environment. Human
beings as part of the earth’s ecosystem deliberately modify ecosystem as a result of
population growth, consumption and technology. Humans have recovery plans on to reverse
the effects of their negative impact. Humans acknowledge the importance of other species in
the ecosystem as part of the system for continued survival.

Effects of Technology
Technology also show ruptures to ecosystem. This technology is detrimental to the
environment. Technology has frequently resulted in the production of substances that can be
classified as hazardous to the environment.
1. Biocide use has introduced enormous quantities of poisonous chemicals into the
environment.
2. Disposal problems have resulted from the consumer-oriented societies of many
advanced nations, some of which consider their waste disposal to other countries that
would cater their waste.
3. Land use management has become a problem in many urban areas. As the human
population has grown, its need for living space has expanded.
Ecosystem processes result from the interactions of population of plants, animals, and
other organism in the environment. The operating attribute of species and the size and
division of populations arbitrate the flow of energy and materials through ecosystems.
Biodiversity also delivers for functional wordiness in ecosystems, thereby increasing the
capability to be resilient.
The variety of life on earth and the variation at every level of biological organization
from genes to species to ecosystem is called biodiversity. This exhibits that the variability of
living organisms from all of its origin, whether marine, terrestrial, and other forms in the
ecological parameters which they are part, includes the miscellaneous of every species of the
ecosystem.
As a result of this process, there is a diversity of organism and roles in ecosystem.
Biodiversity increases the stability of the ecosystem. It is the variety of living organism
considered at these levels:
1. Genetic diversity is the genetic variety within a species both among individuals
within a given population and among geographically separate population.
2. Species diversity is the diversity that includes all the different species on earth.
3. Ecosystem diversity is the variety of interactions within and among the different
ecosystems.
 Environmental awareness and education are relatively needed to resolve issues of
environmental problems. With this, environmental sustainability takes place, it is the ability
to meet humanity’s current needs without compromising the ability of the future generations
to meet their needs.

Loss of Biodiversity
The different kinds of pollution and other human impacts on earth’s ecosystems are already
resulting in an enormous loss of biodiversity. Species that are under extinction are mostly
mammal, bird, and amphibian. It is also emphasized that the loss of species and genetic
diversity decreases the flexibility of ecosystem.

Causes of Biodiversity Loss

The following are the identified causes of biodiversity loss:
1. Habitat Change. The species habitat has been changed from environmental land
agriculture to commercial, industrial and or/residential.
2. Deforestation. The greatest problem forest are facing today. It contribute to the loss
of biodiversity due to the temporary or permanent dissipation of forest for other uses.
Extreme loss of forest trees may lead to an increase in global temperature.
3. Climate Change. This affect the biodiversity and ecosystem when species change in
distribution, population, sizes and migration.
4. Industrialization. It brings an increased demand use of technological development
that depleted the environment.
5. Global Warming. Is the excessive burning of fuels that has caused concentrations of
carbon dioxide and methane emission in the air to such high levels that it causes
greenhouse effect. It is the effect of trapping solar radiation in earth’s atmosphere in
the form of heat.
6. Ozone Depletion. The declining of ozone in the stratosphere and the thinning of the
layer develops as every chlorofluorocarbons and other similar chlorine and bromine-
containing compounds attack the ozone layer.
7. Toxins. These originated from the industry that have gotten into the food chain. It is
when livestock and poultry feed contain antibiotics and hormone to accelerate animal
growth but has side effect to humans who eat the meat.
8. Eutrophication. Human activities can greatly accelerate the process of
eutrophication, (a process in which a lake receives sufficiently large inputs of
sediment, organic materials, and inorganic nutrients from its surroundings to support
dense communities; murky to poor light penetration) because nutrients are carried into
lakes from farms, feedlots, sewage, an even fertilized suburban lawns.
9. Open-Ocean Pollution. There are different threats to this kind of pollution such as
depleting coastal resources, diminishing coral reefs, overfishing and other waste
materials and contaminants in the ocean.
 10. Over Population. It increases destruction of natural habitats, as people convert
natural environments to commercial and residential land. Moreover, over population
demands for large consumption of resources by people which harms the environment.
It is when humans alter ecosystems either by adding or removing specific organism,
serious consequences may result. Human activities of various kinds have had a direct impact
on the biotic part of many ecosystems, pre-eminently endangerment or precocious extinction
of many species of plants and animals.
Habitat destruction happens when the natural habitat is relinquished functionally
incapable of sustaining the present species. The desolation is basically done by human
exertion for the intention of harvesting natural resources. It can also be considered as a form
of destruction of species or group of animals which result in species migration or extinction.
Overhunting of animals resulted in the extinction of many species and has endangered
others. Organism harmful to a particular environment has intentionally or unintentionally
been introduced into the environment. Examples are the emerging number of janitor fish in
the river that caused imbalanced in the biotic river system and exploitation of organism by
commercial trade in exotic plants and animals.

Humans Intervention with Nature

It is not all bad that man intervenes with nature. There are connections which may
strengthen the web of life on Earth. Yet, there are those which decrease its biodiversity and
its inherent ability to support life.
Humans employ nature for both leisure and economic activities. Although early
humans gathered uncultivated plant materials for food and employed the medicinal properties
of vegetation for healing, most modern human use of plants is through agriculture. The
clearance of large tracts of land for crop growth has led to a significant reduction in the
amount available of forestation and wetlands, resulting in the loss of habitat for many plant
and animal species. As well as increased erosion.

Progress in Agriculture, Engineering and Medicine

In the last 150 years, farmers were able to increase food production geometrically in
some places. Much of the world experienced agricultural success, especially in the last 50
years. Between 1950 and 1984, for example, the amount of grain harvested worldwide
increased from 631 million tons to 1.65 billion tons. This represents a gain of 2.6 times at a
time when the world population increased by only1.9 times.
In more recent years, the technology has produced a broader variety of techniques:
new kinds of seed, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and more sophisticated machinery. During
the past 10 years, the world’s food production has increased by 24 percent, outpacing the rate
of population growth.
 Alternative agricultural methods appear to offer the greatest hope of sustaining
agricultural ecosystems and habitats over the long term, but more tests and better methods are
needed. Crops can be produced on the same lands for thousands of years as long as sufficient
fertilizers and water are available; however the soils and other aspects of the original
ecosystem are greatly changed – these are not sustained. In agriculture, production can be
sustained, but the ecosystem may not be (Botkin and Keller, 236p)
Scientists have learned a great deal about the ways to prevent and cure many types of
disease. Thus, millions of people who have died of disease a century ago are more likely to
live to old age. The most effective tools in the conquest of disease have been improved about
nutrition, vaccinations, good public health practices and the development of new medicines.
When young children get enough of the right kinds of food, they are likely to live to
be adults. The second most important factor is vaccinations. As far back as 1800, scientists
knew how to use vaccines to protect people from infectious disease. Third, better public
health practices – the germ theory of disease, discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1870s clearly
demonstrated that a person’s health was also a community problem. Sewage dumped into a
public water supply could cause disease through the community. With this understanding, the
science of public health was born.
And finally, with the advent of new medicines, disease was less of a medical problem
because science has invented a whole range of new medicines with which to treat everything
from infectious to pneumonia. Progress in medical science has had a great effect on the
population of most nations of the world. Nearly everywhere death rates have fallen.

Adverse Effects of People’s Activities

How have we modified natural ecosystems? To survive and support the growing
numbers of people, we have greatly increased the number and area of the earth’s natural
systems that we have modified, cultivated, built on, or degraded. To survive and prosper we
have used technology to severely alter much of the rest of nature (Miller, 2007)
1. Simplifying ecosystems. We eliminate some wildlife habitats by plowing grasslands,
clearing forests, and filling in wetlands, often replacing their thousands of interrelated
plant and animal species with one crop or one kind of tree called monoculture. Or,
with buildings, highways, and parking lots.
2. Strengthening some populations of pest species and disease-causing bacteria by
speeding up natural selection and causing genetic resistance through overuse of
pesticides and antibiotics.
3. Eliminating some predators. Ranchers, who do not want bison or prairie Dogs
competing with their sheep for grass, want to eradicate those species. They also want
to eliminate wolves, coyotes, eagles, and other predators that occasionally kill sheep.
Big game hunters also push for elimination of predators that prey or game species.
4. Deliberately or accidentally introducing new species –some beneficial and some
harmful to us and other species.
5. Over harvesting potentially renewable resources.
6. Interfering with the normal chemical cycling and energy flow (throughputs) in
ecosystem.
Energy and Environment
Uses and Sources of Energy
In many ways, we have enjoyed and benefitted from the use of energy. The uses of energy
are listed below:
1. for generating electricity
2. for residential and commercial lighting
3. for cooling and heating
4. for industrial purposes like mining and smelting
5. for use as raw material (coal, petroleum, and natural gas are used in making
chemicals, plastics, etc.

Sources of Energy
The primary energy sources (meaning energy is created directly from the actual
resource) can be classified in two groups: nonrenewable or renewable. Secondary sources
are derived from primary sources.
1. Non–Renewable Energy Sources – Energy from the ground that has limited supplies
either in the form of gas, liquid or solid, are called non-renewable resources. They
cannot be replenished, or made again, in a short period of time.
Examples include: oil (petroleum), natural gas, coal and uranium (nuclear). Oil,
natural gas and coal are called “fossil fuels” because they have been formed from the
organic remains of prehistoric plants and animals.
2. Renewable Energy Sources – Energy that comes from a source that’s constantly
renewed, such as the sun and wind, can be replenished naturally in a short period of
time. Because of this, we do not have to worry about them running out. Examples
include: solar, wind, biomass and hydropower. Currently, less than 2% of the world’s
electricity comes from renewable resources. There is a global debate as to whether
geothermal energy is renewable or non-renewable.
Secondary energy resources refers to energy that is converted from primary sources are
secondary sources of energy. Secondary sources of energy are used to store, move and deliver
energy in an easily usable form. Examples include electricity and hydrogen.

Energy Crisis and Conservation

There is an “energy crisis” when we are unable to extract sufficient fuel from the
earth to satisfy our needs; or because we are not producing enough electricity using the
various fuels. This results in an energy crisis in spite of abundant energy around us. Energy
conservation refers to reducing energy through using less of an energy service.
Energy conservation differs from efficient energy use, which refers to using less
energy for a constant service. For example, driving less is an example of energy conservation.
Drive-in the same amount with a higher mileage vehicle is an example of energy efficiency.
Energy conservation and efficiency are both energy reduction techniques.
 Energy should be conserved since we are consuming a disproportionate amount of
energy and that day is not far when all our Non-Renewable resources will expire forcing us to
rely just on Renewable Resources. The electricity that we use comes from nuclear power,
coal power plants. Oil that we use to run our vehicles are fossil fuel that were created millions
of years ago from decaying plants. When burned they emit carbon dioxide which is harmful
to humans and the environment.
Apart from these it also helps us to save money, mitigates the numerous adverse
environmental and social impacts associated with energy production and consumption. These
include air pollution, acid rain and global warming, oil spill and water pollution, loss of
wilderness areas, construction of new power plants, foreign energy dependence and the risk
of international conflict over energy supplies. Energy conservation extends the lifetime of
equipment and reduces the maintenance cost of operating lesser hours and at less than
maximum capacity.

Alternative Sources of Energy

Common Types of Alternative Energy
a. Solar energy is the generation of electricity from the sun. It is split up into two types,
thermal and electric energy. These two subgroups mean that they heat up homes and
generate electricity respectively.
b. Wind energy is the generation of electricity from the wind.
c. Geothermal energy is using hot water or steam from the Earth’s interior for heating
buildings or electricity generation.
d. Biofuel and Ethanol are plant-derived substitutes of gasoline for powering vehicles.
e. Nuclear binding energy uses nuclear fission to create energy.
f. Hydrogen is used as a clean fuel for spaceships and some cars.