Environmental Issues Need to Be Viewed Accurately

Our Mother Earth is facing a lot of environmental problems today. These challenges affect the environment and the health of humans, animals, and countries on this planet. Our environment is changing day by day, and as the environment changes daily, the need for awareness of the problems surrounding it also increases. With natural disasters and different weather patterns, people need to be aware of the problems that our planet is facing. We are in a state of emergency on earth. Environmental problems are increasing day by day. Unless we take various problems seriously, we will surely suffer from them.

1. Pollution:

It can be said that environmental pollution is no longer a strange problem for us. Environmental pollution is a phenomenon in which the natural environment is polluted by humans introducing polluting chemicals into the natural environment, at the same time the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the environment are changed, causing harm to human health and other organisms. Currently, environmental pollution has been and is a global problem, causing serious consequences for both humans and the natural environment.

There are 7 main types of pollution which are air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, noise pollution, radiation, light, and heat. These are the main causes that affect the environment in many ways. All these types of pollution are interconnected and affect each other.

2. Land degradation:

According to the United Nations, about 12 million hectares of agricultural land are seriously degraded each year. Land degradation is caused by a process in which the environmental value is affected by a combination of human processes on the land. Land degradation is considered any change or disturbance to the land that is harmful or undesirable. There are many types of land degradation such as drought, desertification, abandoned land, landslides, liming, and soil pollution.

Today a variety of soil conservation and restoration techniques exist, from no-till agriculture to crop rotation to water retention through canal construction.

3. Global warming effect:

Global warming is the phenomenon of an increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface over a long period. This is the result of the accumulation of factors such as deforestation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and the greenhouse effect. Global warming leads to increased temperatures in the oceans and the Earth’s surface causing natural disasters such as floods, melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels and unusual rainfall patterns, storms, droughts, desertification, etc.

4. Overpopulation:

The world’s population has grown rapidly and dramatically since the 1950s, when colonial countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America gained independence, improved living standards and advances in health care rapidly reduced mortality rates, while birth rates remained high. A population explosion occurs when the natural increase rate exceeds 2.1%. The planet’s population is facing a shortage of resources when resources are already scarce. This challenge requires us to find sustainable solutions to balance economic growth and population management while ensuring social development and environmental protection.

5. Depletion of natural resources:

Depletion of natural resources is the phenomenon of a decrease in the quantity or quality of natural resources that cannot be restored. Natural resources include resources that exist without human action and they can be renewable or non-renewable. Which, we, humans use a lot of natural resources up to 1.5 Earths to meet all our needs. This number will increase in the future when constructions and industrial zones spring up massively over time, leading to resource depletion and an energy crisis.

6. Waste:

Our massive waste from overconsumption is also a major threat to the environment. According to one study, the average person produces about 4.3 pounds of waste per day, and the United States alone produces 220 million tons of waste per year. This overconsumption leads to non-biodegradable waste such as plastics, toxic e-waste, and harmful chemicals that seep into our groundwater. When this waste is buried in landfills, it produces methane, which is ranked as one of the worst greenhouse gases and is a high fire hazard.

7. Waste treatment problem:

The over-consumption of resources to produce plastics is creating a global crisis of waste disposal. Developed countries are notorious for producing too much waste or garbage and dumping their waste into the ocean and less developed countries. Disposing of plastic waste, fast food, packaging, and electronic waste is threatening the environment and human life. Therefore, this is also one of the urgent problems today.

8. Deforest:

Deforestation is having a major impact on the environment and has serious consequences. Our forests are natural carbon dioxide sinks and produce fresh oxygen, as well as helping to regulate temperature and rainfall. Today, forests cover 30% of the land, but the country of Panama is being lost every year due to the growing population’s need for food, shelter, and clothing. Deforestation simply means clearing away the green cover and making that land available for residential, industrial, or commercial purposes.

9. Melting ice:

The problem of melting ice at both poles is due to global warming. This phenomenon causes glaciers around the world to become increasingly unstable and sea levels to rise. Melting ice caps in the Arctic is the main cause of rising sea levels. Over time, the melting of polar ice caps can lead to widespread flooding, water pollution, and major changes in ecosystems.

10. Loss of biodiversity:

Along with environmental pollution, the situation of biodiversity loss is at an alarming level. Human activities are leading to species and habitat extinction and biodiversity loss. Ecosystems, which take millions of years to develop, are in danger when any population of species is in decline. About 45% of species and their habitats are on the verge of disappearing if biodiversity loss continues in the future. Biodiversity loss is a global challenge that has impacts on the environment, human health and economic development.

11. Climate Change:

Climate change is the long-term change in temperature and weather patterns. These changes can be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. However, since the 1800s, human activity has been the main cause of climate change, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Burning fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, which increase global temperatures. The Earth is now 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s. The last decade (2011–2020) was the warmest on record. Many weather events that were once considered rare or unprecedented are now more common, including severe heat waves, severe droughts, stronger tornadoes, and more unusual rain and snow. In addition, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, severe storms and loss of biodiversity are also consequences of climate change.

12. Ocean acidification:

Ocean acidification is the process of lowering the pH of Earth’s oceans, caused by the absorption of CO₂ from the atmosphere. When CO₂ dissolves in seawater, it forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). This phenomenon is often referred to as ocean acidification, or “the CO₂ problem,” in addition to ocean warming. Global ocean surface pH has dropped by more than 0.1 units since the Industrial Revolution, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios predicts a future decrease of 0.3 to 0.5 pH units globally by 2100, although the rate and extent of the decrease will vary by region. The entire ocean will remain alkaline, with a pH above 7. So why is it called ocean acidification? When CO₂ reacts with seawater, it becomes carbonic acid, which is unstable. This molecule further reacts with seawater by releasing H⁺ ions to become bicarbonate. This has a major impact on shelled organisms, especially plankton, on coral reefs.

13. Ozone layer depletion:

The ozone layer is a part of the Earth’s atmosphere, located approximately 10 to 50 km above the Earth’s surface. It is responsible for blocking most of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, and protecting human health and the environment. The ozone hole is a decrease in the amount of ozone in the ozone layer. The main cause of the ozone hole is the use of ozone-depleting substances (ODS), such as halocarbon refrigerants (CFCs), HCFCs, and haloalkanes. When they come into contact with the ozone layer, they break down ozone into oxygen, increasing the amount of UV-B rays reaching the Earth’s surface. The consequences of the ozone hole include increased risk of skin cancer, sunburn, skin aging, and effects on plants and animals.

14. Nuclear problem:

Nuclear waste, also known as radioactive waste, is materials or substances that contain radioactive elements and have become unstable through nuclear decay. Radioactive elements are elements with unstable nuclei and can emit radioactive rays. Nuclear waste is threatening the future of humans and the environment. Nuclear power generation is the most polluting industry, leaving behind a dangerous waste for future generations. A 1,000MW nuclear power plant annually discharges 30-50m³ of radioactive waste and 30 tons of spent fuel.

15. Agriculture: 

Studies have shown that the global food system is responsible for up to one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, of which 30% comes from livestock and fisheries. Crop production releases greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide through the use of fertilisers. 60% of the world’s agricultural area is dedicated to cattle ranching, although it only makes up 24% of global meat consumption. Agriculture not only covers a vast amount of land, but it also consumes a vast amount of freshwater, another one of the biggest environmental problems on this list. While arable lands and grazing pastures cover one-third of Earth’s land surfaces, they consume three-quarters of the world’s limited freshwater resources. Scientists and environmentalists have continuously warned that we need to rethink our current food system; switching to a more plant-based diet would dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of the conventional agriculture industry.

16. Fast Fashion and Textile Waste:

The global demand for fashion and clothing has risen at an unprecedented rate that the fashion industry now accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions, becoming one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. Fashion alone produces more greenhouse gas emissions than both the aviation and shipping sectors combined, and nearly 20% of global wastewater, or around 93 billion cubic metres from textile dyeing, according to the UN Environment Programme.

What’s more, the world at least generated an estimated 92 million tonnes of textiles waste every year and that number is expected to soar up to 134 million tonnes a year by 2030. Discarded clothing and textile waste, most of which is non-biodegradable, ends up in landfills, while microplastics from clothing materials such as polyester, nylon, polyamide, acrylic and other synthetic materials, is leeched into soil and nearby water sources. Monumental amounts of clothing textile are also dumped in less developed countries as seen with Chile’s Atacama, the driest desert in the world, where at least 39,000 tonnes of textile waste from other nations are left there to rot.

Euratex : Circulation textile waste into value

This rapidly growing issue is only exacerbated by the ever-expanding fast fashion business model, in which companies relies on cheap and speedy production of low quality clothing to meet the latest and newest trends. While the United Nations Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action sees signatory fashion and textile companies to commit to achieving net zero emission by 2050, a majority of businesses around the world have yet to address their roles in climate change.

While these are some of the biggest environmental problems plaguing our planet, there are many more that have not been mentioned, including overfishing, urban sprawl, toxic superfund sites and land use changes. While there are many facets that need to be considered in formulating a response to the crisis, they must be coordinated, practical and far-reaching enough to make enough of a difference.

17. Overfishing:

Over three billion people around the world rely on fish as their primary source of protein. About 12% of the world relies upon fisheries in some form or another, with 90% of these being small-scale fishermen – think a small crew in a boat, not a ship, using small nets or even rods and reels and lures not too different from the kind you probably use. Of the 18.9 million fishermen in the world, 90% of them fall under the latter category.

Most people consume approximately twice as much food as they did 50 years ago and there are four times as many people on earth as there were at the close of the 1960s. This is one driver of the 30% of commercially fished waters being classified as being ‘overfished’. This means that the stock of available fishing waters is being depleted faster than it can be replaced.

Overfishing comes with detrimental effects on the environment, including increased algae in the water, destruction of fishing communities, ocean littering as well as extremely high rates of biodiversity loss.

As part of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 14), the UN and FAO are working towards maintaining the proportion of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels. This, however, requires much stricter regulations of the world’s oceans than the ones already in place. In July 2022, the WTO banned fishing subsidies to reduce global overfishing in a historic deal. Indeed, subsidies for fuel, fishing gear, and building new vessels, only incentivise overfishing and represent thus a huge problem.

18. Cobalt Mining:

Cobalt is quickly becoming the defining example of the mineral conundrum at the heart of the renewable energy transition. As a key component of battery materials that power electric vehicles (EVs), cobalt is facing a sustained surge in demand as decarbonisation efforts progress. The world’s largest cobalt supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it is estimated that up to a fifth of the production is produced through artisanal miners.

Cobalt mining, however, is associated with dangerous workers’ exploitation and other serious environmental and social issues. The environmental costs of cobalt mining activities are also substantial. Southern regions of the DRC are not only home to cobalt and copper, but also large amounts of uranium. In mining regions, scientists have made note of high radioactivity levels. In addition, mineral mining, similar to other industrial mining efforts, often produces pollution that leaches into neighbouring rivers and water sources. Dust from pulverised rock is known to cause breathing problems for local communities as well.