Essay Example: The Causes of Environmental Pollution

The Causes of Environmental Pollution

Pollution refers to the contamination that occurs in the natural surroundings because of the release of different types of pollutants that affect the ecosystem and ultimately, result in a change in the normal lifestyle that people live since pollution has adverse effects. It follows that the key components and elements of environmental corruption involve waste materials of various kinds (Gavrilescu, Demnerová, Aamand, Agathos & Fava, 2015). It is evident that pollution is an aggravating factor to our ecosystem as well as to the environmental balance in the world. It is further clear that the said environmental corruption has reached the tip of the iceberg because of the developments occurring in our lives as well as because of modernization and this has brought about the issue of human diseases and global warming. Many different types of pollution occur, and some of this includes water pollution, air pollution, radioactive contamination, soil contamination, light pollution and thermal/ heat pollution. Every type of pollution has two occurrence sources namely, the non-point and the point sources. The point sources are those sources that can be easily identified and therefore can be monitored and controlled to reduce the given form of pollution. On the other hand, the non-point sources are those that are difficult to track since they are not easy to identify. Therefore, this paper seeks to provide and analyze the causes of pollution, more so, in the urban areas.

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It is evident that the leading causes of all issues in the environment today are the human activity (Vesilind, Peirce & Weiner, 2013). For instance, the leading two causes of pollutants in the urban environment involve power production technologies as well as transportation technologies since this are highly invested in the urban areas. Automobiles constitute a part of the transportation technologies while coal-burning plants, industrial heating as well as industrial cooling constitutes power production techniques. The air that we breathe is highly affected by the increased carbon monoxides levels produced by automobiles. Besides, many problems continue to subdue the earth, which despite the ability to be fixed have not been set because of the adamancy of the people living in the land today. One such persistent problem waste issues, where despite there being rules and regulations put in place to reduce the environment problems associated with wastes, the societal lifestyles that people tend to abide by does microscopic to change the issue.

Moreover, it is further evident that people despite having complete knowledge of the issue continue to refute practicing personal recycling, in spite of this not only ensuring the preservation of energy but also on ensuring the reduction of production, which is among the leading causes of pollution. Additionally, people have failed to recognize the need of investing more in hybrid cars, which evidently produce lower emissions and therefore, are friendlier to the environment instead of their counterparts, which make use of gasoline. On the other hand, many companies still fail to embark on the mission of reducing emissions, which highly pollutes the environment. It is evident that many of these societies still lack an understanding of the importance of using strategic controls to ensure that air pollution reduces through avoiding the burn of coals and instead focusing on cleaner fuels.

Federal regulatory power

Besides, as mentioned before, the other cause of contamination is the failure of people to follow the rules and regulations that have been put in place to ensure that pollution is reduced in the society. Nevertheless, people have continually refused to change their personal lifestyles, and this is a reflection of the problem that is deeply rooted in culture in that despite the fact that the environment is deteriorating because of the causes of pollution, people still are adamant concerning changing their lifestyles. It follows that after massive industrialization has existed for more than a century now and increased levels of consumption have continued to occur, people have begun to take notice of the effects of different types of pollution. Some of the most prominent ones are increased garbage dumps, acid rain, contaminated sites as well as polluted water and air. Nevertheless, it is evident that the blame should rather fall on individuals rather than on commerce since it is people’s lifestyle that promotes pollution (Vesilind, Peirce & Weiner, 2013). Every year in the United States, the air has to deal with three-hundred carbon tons, which are released in the air. It is through this release among others that have not only damaged the ecosystem but has left the world to deal with the increasing problem of global warming.

Furthermore, advances that have continually occurred in the realm of technology have enabled people to overcome the problems of light pollution. Nevertheless, very few people have embraced this form of technology because of different reasons such as the expenses incurred in buying such technology despite its benefits not only to the person but also to the society. For instance, technology has enabled light bulbs that allow less heat generation to occur and therefore, this promotes less air-conditioning during the summer. However, people still fail to embrace such form of technology. The other individual lifestyle pertains the use of shopping bags, where people have been unable to understand the importance of reusing shopping bags and therefore, they fail to practice such.

In America, the government has continually used federal regulatory power to ensure that the emissions of the greenhouse gas is controlled and has also focused more on oil refineries as well as power plants. The reason behind this pertains that these two combined produce an emission of about 40 percent alone in America. Therefore, there is a consideration for making use of various tools to ensure the reduction of these emissions from factories (Lelieveld, Evans, Fnais, Giannadaki & Pozzer, 2015). In the world, one of the leading countries that have cities with increased air pollution concentrations is China because of the increased industrial developments and growths that occur there, which ultimately results in the rapid utilization of natural resources in addition to increased pollution. The country is dealing not only with increased air pollution but also with water pollution, which has continually resulted in the death of many people therein. To this effect, the Chinese government has input therein-stricter environmental laws in a bid to reduce pollutions occurring there (Chen, Wang, Ma & Zhang, 2013). Nonetheless, the government finds it difficult to enforce the said laws because of many reasons such as the benefits that it is receiving from the said levels of development and growth in the country’s factories. It follows that until today, China is still fighting to help ensure the prevention and the reduction of air and water pollution in the entire country.

In India, the causes of air pollution are many, for instance, the burning of toxic fuels to make their meals (Guttikunda, Goel & Pant, 2014). The Indian people burn wood, coal, as well as animal dung to prepare their meals. These forms of fuels release very toxic components in the air that these people breathe and therefore, have detrimental effects on their health. Besides, the numbers of people in India who lack proper ventilation or no ventilation at all account for 70 percent. Therefore, the forms of air pollution occurring therein are both indoors and outdoors and therefore, and there is the need to ensure that measures are put in place to meet these issues to avoid the continued deaths of many people in that country.

Nevertheless, such change will be difficult to input in the country because as obvious, change is a tough process when people are involved since many prefer to continue with their lifestyle in spite of how detrimental these lifestyles are to both them and the environment. The need to meet and deal with the greenhouse effect in the world today continues to promote a sense of urgency because if more greenhouses gasses are continually emitted, it is evident that the world is going to be in trouble. The reason this statement is true is that of the rates at which these gasses are raising the temperatures of the earth.

The Effects of Environmental Pollution

It is evident from the analysis of the causes of environmental pollution that the effects arising from infection are very detrimental to human beings and animals as well as to the entire ecosystem. The said forms of corruption continue to cause panic in the world because if they continue to occur as they are now, the Earth will experience negative consequences that will be hard to control. One of the issues that continue to scare people is the rise of global warming, which in spite of not being immediately noticeable is very catastrophic.

The reason behind this pertains that a change in temperature in the world even with a few degrees results in catastrophic weather changes, which is currently being seen in different parts of the world today. The other effects of environmental pollution pertain the increased deaths of people in various regions of the world (Smith, Bruce, Balakrishnan, Adair-Rohani, Balmes, Chafe,... & Rehfuess, 2014). The reason for this is issues such as air pollution, which affects the health of people, for instance, it results in lung problems because of the air that people breathe. These are but some of the effects of environmental pollution, which if not dealt with will lead to the destruction of the ecosystem as well as of the human population.

It sum, it is evident that the causes of pollution in the world today are many. Some of the causes of pollution as seen are because of the poor lifestyle choices that individuals in the world make in the belief of making their lives comfortable on earth. Moreover, as also seen, the other reason that environmental pollution occurs is that of the carelessness, ignorance, and adamancy of human beings to adhere to the rules and regulations put in place for their benefits. The other factor that has propelled the occurrence of environmental pollution pertains that since governments have set stricter standards and regulations in their respective countries, they still do not implement these rules and regulations because of numerous reasons. Therefore, because of the existent reluctance to ensure that people's and businesses abide by the rules and the regulations in place the levels of pollution continues to increase. To this effect, there is a great need to ensure that the governments of the world deal with these problems efficiently and therefore, find the best solutions that can either reduce the levels of pollution occurring in the world or curb them completely.

References

Chen, Z., Wang, J. N., Ma, G. X., & Zhang, Y. S. (2013). China tackles the health effects of air pollution. The Lancet, 382(9909), 1959.

Gavrilescu, M., Demnerová, K., Aamand, J., Agathos, S., & Fava, F. (2015). Emerging pollutants in the environment: present and future challenges in biomonitoring, ecological risks and bioremediation. New Biotechnology, 32(1), 147-156.

Guttikunda, S. K., Goel, R., & Pant, P. (2014). Nature of air pollution, emission sources, and management in the Indian cities. Atmospheric Environment, 95, 501-510.

Lelieveld, J., Evans, J. S., Fnais, M., Giannadaki, D., & Pozzer, A. (2015). The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature, 525(7569), 367-371.

Smith, K. R., Bruce, N., Balakrishnan, K., Adair-Rohani, H., Balmes, J., Chafe, Z., ... & Rehfuess, E. (2014). Millions dead: how do we know and what does it mean? Methods used in the comparative risk assessment of household air pollution. Annual Review of Public Health, 35, 185-206.

Vesilind, P. A., Peirce, J. J., & Weiner, R. F. (2013). Environmental pollution and control. Elsevier.