The Causes And Consequences Of Pollution And The Environment

Ever since a creature called Man, who walked on two feet and had his hands and arms free to do things, for instance, to produce tools and to build structures, he has also created waste from his constructive by-products, and in doing so, he has changed the environment – some for the better and unfortunately some for the worse. Some of the wastes are permanent and the fossil remains of some of it, which formed many thousands of years ago, is preserved in such a good state that it indicates quite an accurate story of our past history. In fact, human beings have always been producing wastes and have not really bothered very much about the consequences and drawbacks that these wastes may lead to. Pollution and environment can be listed under
When we are reading newspapers, watching news channel on television, or even at school or college, we can at least see or hear something related to pollution. This shows how serious the rate of pollution, regardless of forms is in today’s world. Pollution takes place when pollutants or wastes contaminate our natural surroundings in which it causes harmful effects that will negatively affect not only ours but also animals lives. Pollutants are the major components of these contaminations and are generally waste materials of different forms (Conserve Energy Future, 2013). Pollution damages or even destroys our ecosystem and the balance in the environment. To illustrate that, pollutants such as sewage and chemical fertilizers that contain a high level of nitrogen as well as phosphorus have promoted the growth of microscopic and macroscopic plants excessively. When these plants grow in excess, die, and decay, they absorb oxygen in the water and eventually reduce the oxygen level in the water. As a result, the marine life such as fishes can hardly survive through the lacking of oxygen and the marine ecosystem is damaged (Pelley, 1998). Not only that, as the world is getting modernized and everything is globalized, pollution is said to have reached a peak level, causing the rise of human illnesses and global warming. Pollution takes place in many distinctive forms: air, soil, noise, water, radioactive, and light. Each
As we are living a fast pace of life where everything needs to be done within the shortest period of time in order to produce maximum efficiency, transportations like cars, airplanes, and motorbikes are extremely essential to us. This is because they allow us to go to school, college, workplace, or transport our products and services within a short period of time. According to a survey done by Corrin & Williams (2014), a total number of 1462 respondents are surveyed based on their transportation mode, and their respective responses regarding carpooling. By referring to Figure 1 and Figure 2 from Appendices, 689 (47.5%) respondents drive alone whereas only 316 (21.8%) respondents carpool. This shows that the total number of people who practice carpool is still low, which is less than 40 percent. Respondents who do not carpool are then asked to give out reasons of that and the result is shown in Figure 3. Most of them do not carpool due to failure to find anyone to carpool, irregular hours, loss of flexibility, and so on. In fact, most of them will not mind carpooling if they can find a match, working circumstances changed, able to find people they can trust, no longer commute using current travel, and so on (Figure 4). From this study, it is clear to say that to reduce air