Earth vs. Humans

Deirdre Coffield
English 090-B10
July 26, 2010

Earth vs. humans

When the earth began it was filled with gases and molecules. Then there was water, plants and animals and years ago man came. Through the years humans have evolved beyond our expectations, while this is exciting we have caused damage and deterioration to our environment. From the air we breathe to the water we drink and the animals we consume, the environment is constantly being affected.
First the very stuff we breathe is being contaminated; the burning of fossil fuel, trash, gases, wood and chemicals is polluting our planet. These same pollutants are eating away at the one thing that protects us from harmful ultraviolet rays. The ozone is a layer in our atmosphere that is 50 kilometers thick. Due to CFC’s it has decreased to 3 percent. This then causes global warming which affects our climate. By burning fossil fuel we have increased the greenhouse effect, damage plant and soil life. Some pollutants absorb and fall to the earth as acid or weak rain. They are both harmful to the living. Glacier and snow caps melt, forcing the seas to rise. From there it just gets worse, longer winters, hurricanes that cause natural disasters and massive tornados on water. The climate changes and weather breakdown also effect animals. 550 million years ago the earliest plants were brown alga, kelp, and Precambrian they existed 350 billion years ago. Today there is thousands even millions of plant life, the temperature increase is cause the plants to relocate or even parish. When the migration of birds happens late, the ecosystem balance is un-natural. Icebergs, becoming less seen in the north and more widely spread in the warmer parts, have caused food sources to significantly decline for polars and to stop hibernating. Half of the animal populations live in the rainforest. There are thirty-five species. Ninety are already extinct, and two types die per hour which adds up to fifty a day. Due to acidification, reproduction of copepods and sea urchins is almost none. Bottom line chemicals, human sediment, and climate changes are smothering our streams and destroying our habitat. We trade on, eat from and use minerals its produces. Almost ninety-seven percent of pollution is contained in the oceans. With the climate change, some icebergs are abnormally big and cause damage to ships, and changes in the Earth’s rotation have an effect on water also. There are 600,000 Km. middle ocean ridges, Glisters align to create Alps which in turn creates crest that rise and mark plate boundaries. This is where Lithosphere plates covers the sphere the Athena-sphere that is made up of crust and mantle. Human sediments are weighting down the seabed causing the Lithosphere plates to sink. This has brought about declining food, oxygen, and amphibians through most if not all of our oceans. In conclusion, we as a whole have to start working together to lower the fossil fuels we burn, trash we throw, and the chemicals we use. The country has made one solution and that’s making manufactures create production packs to pay for disposal. There are many other solutions like buying in bulk and using re-sealable containers; that way less packaging is wasted. Others are buying recycled products, avoiding single servings, and avoiding food that turns to waste. Use other things for energy such as sun, bio-degradable chemicals, and finding better ways to dispose of those things we need but cause waste. If we want a place for our grandchildren, then we need to start getting the carbon dioxide down and our waters cleaned up before the year 2050.