OUR ENVIRONMENTS
(is it really only ours?)

The first traces of pollution and destroying of the environment originated already in the past. At one time people lived by gathering wild foods and by hunting and fishing. Then they became farmers and in that moment started a big problem which grew up to now. People discovered advantages of agriculture……they reared domestic animals, learned to store food and began to burn forests to obtain more land for agriculture and cattle grazing. Later they started to build towns and cities, dams and canals for irrigation. But damages weren’t so dangerous like in this century. We can say that this century broke a lot of records by injuring the environment . In the past were influences only on some parts in the world, but today? They are everywhere in all biosphere’s all over the world. Some of the changes are so quick and so large that they are starting to threaten the basic natural connections . And what are these basic problems between people and environment? Here are only some examples:

-a rapid population growth (it is still bigger and bigger)
-big growth of consumption and production in some parts of the world
- nature was used without regard to ecological effects for a long time
- results of important scientific investigations are not used perfectly and sufficiently
- underestimating of protecting conditions of life on the Earth
- people don’t behave reasonably and sensibly to nature
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Many ( and maybe all ) causes are connected together. The speed of drawing on resources is different and not every resource can be restored. They are often limited and when we exhaust them, we won’t be able “to buy“ new sources. Protecting resources is very important and using them must be very reasonable all over the world.

There is a lot of pollution in the world and I think that nobody could express in numbers every cause of damages to the Environment.


Here are some examples which I think that they are important and basic:
*municipal waste, litter…( we haven’t got enough places for them )
*smog ( we breathe it in our towns, cities,…) from cars, buses, motorcycles, chimneys,…
*some factories don’t use cleaners for wastewater…it shows in bad quality of water, air, soil and it affects plants, flowers, trees, animals…and us !!!
*we produce fertilisers and insecticides to improve yield, but they can also kill vegetation and wildlife !!!
*our laundry detergents pollute watercourses, we breathe oxygen which is produced mostly in oceans and brought in to the continents by the wind * if our chemicals kill the organisms producing oxygen, we shall soon run out of oxygen to breathe
*we are still destroying woods, forests and tropical rain forests for firewood, building materials, for new agricultural use and for new town,…but the forests and woods are „home“ for animals and flowers,…which can’t live or grow on other places. In rain forests are some rare insects, reptiles, birds, mammals, plants, flowers,…


Here are some facts which we can’t perhaps imagine because we don’t know it:

*Every week, a staggering 10 000 square kilometres of tropical rain forests are cut down. An area the size of France disappears every 12 month !!!
*Over the last 10 years, the Sahara has advanced southwards by an average of 20 kilometres per year, and 250 000 square kilometres of land has turned into desert !!!
*A major report of global warming has warned that average world temperatures will rise by several degrees in the next century, due to the build-up of carbon dioxide and other „greenhouse gases“ in the Earth’ atmosphere !!!
*In 1985 it was noticed that there was a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. Scientists now believe that the loss of ozone may be as much as 30%, and still rising !!!
* There are now more than 800 nuclear power stations throughout the world. Although this supposed to be a „clean“ form of energy , there are in fact very high risks associated with
it !!!
*The nations of the world , rich and poor alike, continue to regard the sea as a convenient place to dump millions of chemicals, sewage and industrial waste !!!
*Smoke from factories and coal fired power stations not only pollutes the air, but also causes chemicals changes in the atmosphere which result in acid rain !!!

Some effects which we made:

Many animals and plants are already extinct like dinosaurs and many will disappear in the future because of environment’s changes. But on the other hand many animals could contrariwise propagate like locusts and provoke an ecological catastrophe.
As a example can we use the panda’s bears situation.


GIANT PANDAS (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) or Da Xiong Mao, how sounds its Chines name
Pandas’ are on of the rarest animals in the world. They live only in a small area in the mountains of South-western China. They are only 500 – 1000 pandas surviving in the wild, and the number is decreasing all the time. There are about 100 more in zoos and research stations. They can eat only bamboo, but people are still cutting this bamboo. As their habitat is getting smaller and smaller, pandas are in danger of dying because of lack of food.
But this mammal isn’t alone. It concerns a lot of other mammals, reptiles, insects, birds, fishes…, plants, trees, flowers,...


THINGS WHICH WE CAN DO TO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT:

*IF AT ISN’T VERY FAR, WALK OR CYCLE – LEAVE THE CAR AT HOME ! (AND YOU COULD FEEL BETTER FROM CLEAN AND FRESH AIR)
*HAVE A SHOWER INSTEAD OF A BATH TO SAVE WATER
*WHEN YOU GO SHOPPING, DO NOT ASK FOR A BAG – TAKE ONE ALONG WITH YOU !! ( YOU CAN HAVE CLOTH BAG AND AT ISN’T HEAVY TO TAKE IT ALONG WITH YOU )
*DON’T THROW AWAY OLD BOTTLES – TAKE THEM TO A BOTTLE BANK !!
*DON’T BUY FURNITURE MADE FROM TROPICAL HARDWOODS !!
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And what governments could do to help the Environment ???

Governments could for example:


DOUBLE THE PRICE OF PETROL !! ( BUT THERE WOULD BE ON THE OTHER SIDE SOME DISADVANTAGES FOR PEOPLE LIKE VERY EXPENSIVE TRAVEL…)


PUT A DEPOSIT ON BOTTLES TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO RETURN THEM ( IN SPITE OF THIS OPINION DEPOSIT WAS CANCELLED ON SOME SORTS OF BOTTLES IN OUR COUNTRY )



PUT A TAX ON PLASTIC BAGS !! ( WHY COULDN‘T WE TAKE A CLOTH BAG ALONG WITH US ?)

BAN THE IMPORT OF TROPICAL HARDWOODS !!!


These are only my suppositions and thoughts but I think that they could be reasonable.

Maturita.cz - referát (verze pro snadný tisk)
http://www.maturita.cz/referaty/referat.asp?id=6456