look around
look around
Overpopulation, a subject nobody wants to talk about. In the past, survival meant repopulating. However, we’re reaching the maximum carrying capacity that our planet can sustain. The consequences are quite harsh, the most prominent being the degradation of our surroundings.
Humans need space. To accommodate for the inflated population, clear-cutting is used to make room, which leads to the damaging the ecosystem and increases CO2 levels. The planet can only sustain so much harm until it begins backfire.
Pollution is all over, which is especially bad in China. Trash is being thrown out on the freeway, pumped into the atmosphere, dumped into the ocean… we are repeatedly polluting our own resources that requires millions of years to restore.
Poor air quality will increase asthma and cancer rates in humans. Garbage introduced within the ocean poisons and kills marine life, and since most trash is indissoluble, it accumulates bit by bit. Eventually, it would be the lead reason for reduced biodiversity.
Global warming is arguably the greatest consequence for our impact to the environment. Each year, our CO2 levels are increasing globally. This has inevitably contributed to the planet’s average temperature increasing nearly an entire degree.
As this happens, melting ice and glaciers cause the ocean levels to rise, which permits more water to soak up more heat, which melts more ice, initiating a cycle that will cause the oceans to rise and eventually submerging cities. Additionally, global warming impacts weather patterns, causing more natural disasters.
The ozone layer protects us from UV rays that would be harmful to the health of all life. Without it, we would be unable to walk outside.
Ozone depleting substances find their way up where they destroy the layer. It is a disastrous situation for wheat and barley, two crucial crops to humans, because they are both extraordinarily sensitive to UV light.
To make capacity for more humans, forests are cleared, which in turn provides humans with more space to make... well, more humans. You can see the problem. 18 million acres of trees (just under half of all the trees on the planet) are clear-cut each year for space.
The most important producer of oxygen are trees, getting rid of them clearly is not a good idea. Increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere leads to further global warming. Not to mention it also effects the millions of different species living in the forests, putting their lives in danger.
