Environmental Pollution Essay, Research Paper

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Automobiles like these are around the world everyday, and their exhaust destroys our air everyday.

Our environment is a major aspect of our life today. Many of us don’t take our Earth seriously and think

that as long as pollution doesn’t hurt them they can go ahead and throw garbage on the ground or spill oil

down the drain. Well to many people have that theory and they are killing off our Earth and also physically

harming themselves from the air they breath and the water they swim in. Our Earth is fragile like a human

and people don’t know. There are many different types of environmental pollution (e.g. Water, air,

atmospheric.)

Scientists believe that all cities with populations exceeding 50,000 have some degree of air

pollution. Burning garbage in open dumps causes air pollution, and also it smells pretty bad. Air pollution

comes from many different sources. One of the major sources is carbon monoxide which manly comes

from automobiles, but also burning of fossil fuels, CFCs etc. Air pollution does not leave the Earth it all

gets trapped up in the atmosphere. This doesn’t bother most people, and they think that it will not harm

them. People burn down forests and people burn fossil fuels, and CFCs from aerosols. Every bit of this

harms our atmosphere. Factories and transportation depend on huge amounts of fuel billions of tons of coal

and oil are consumed around the world every year. When these fuels burn they introduce smoke and other,

less visible, by-products into the atmosphere. Although wind and rain occasionally wash away the smoke

given off by power plants and automobiles, the cumulative effe!

ct of air pollution poses a grave threat to humans and the environment. A big example of smog is LA you

can see the smog just hovering above the city. I don’t think any human alive should be subject to that kind

of environment. Scientists believe that all cities with populations exceeding 50,000 have some degree of air

pollution. Burning garbage in open dumps causes air pollution Scientist have discovered that over the

South Pole the ozone has a high level of ozone depletion.

A computer-enhanced map, taken from satellite observations of ozone levels in the atmosphere over the

South Pole, shows the region of ozone depletion that has begun to appear each spring over Antarctica.

When you look at this picture you can see the big red spot right above the South Pole. If this

depletion opens up dangerous and deadly UV Rays from the sun will come into Earth. Air pollution causes

global warming which scientist believe is making the Earth warmer and melting ice up in the South and

North Pole. The country Holland has had water from the ocean got too high for them and flooded into

towns. Holland spent millions of dollars to put up “dikes” which are big barriers in the water to prevent

their town to be completely submerged. With the ocean getting deeper coastal cites all around the world

could flood, billions of dollars would be spent to try to prevent it, but in a while it could not be stopped.

Instead of waiting and having to spend all this money why don’t we put it together today and try different

ways of preventing air pollution, it would be much easier than all the trouble of stopping flooding.

Water pollution is another major aspect of environmental pollution. Water pollution is scary

because over 75% of our Earth is covered by the ocean. Water pollution comes from many different

sources around the world. One major pollutant that destroys the ocean is oil spills. The oil from an oil spill

kills hundreds of sea animals from fish, to whales, to birds. Below is a small list of just some of the major

oil spills. Notice how many tons were spilled into our ocean…

Notable Oil Spills

Date Location Description Tons spilled

Jan.-June, 1942 East coast of U.S. German U-boat attacks on tankers after 590,000

March 18, 1967 Land’s End, Cornwall, England Grounding of ‘Torrey Canyon’ 119,000

June 13, 1968 South Africa Hull failure of ‘World Glory’ 46,000

Nov. 5, 1969 Massachusetts Hull failure of ‘Keo’ 30,000

March 20, 1970 Tr?lhavet Bay, Sweden Collision of ‘Othello’ with another ship 60,000 to

100,000

Dec. 19, 1972 Gulf of Oman Collision of ‘Sea Star’ with another ship 115,000

May 12, 1976 La Coruna, Spain Grounding of ‘Urquiola’ 100,000

Dec. 15, 1976 Nantucket, Mass. Grounding of ‘Argo Merchant’ 26,000

Feb. 25, 1977 Pacific Ocean Fire aboard ‘Hawaiian Patriot’ 99,000

March 16, 1978 Portsall, France Grounding of ‘Amoco Cadiz’ 223,000

July 19, 1979 Trinidad and Tobago Collision between ‘Atlantic Empress’ 300,000

Nov. 1, 1979 Galveston Bay, Tex. Collision of ‘Burmah Agate’ with 36,000

Aug. 6, 1983 Cape Town, South Africa Fire aboard ‘Castillo de Beliver’ 250,000

March 24, 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Grounding of ‘Exxon Valdez’ 34,000

Jan. 25, 1991 Sea Island, Kuwait Iraq deliberately dumped oil into 1,450,000*

Dec. 3, 1992 Spain Grounding of ‘Aegean Sea’ 84,000

Jan. 5, 1993 Shetland Islands Grounding of ‘Braer’ 87,000

Over a million tons of oil has been spilled into the ocean, and we are not able to clean all the oil out. Most

of the oil stays on the surface so when fish come up to the surface they get the oil on their body, and it gets

into their body and gills. Birds land on the water to catch fish or take a break when the oil gets on their

feathers and they are to weighted down to fly off, they later get to tired and just die from either poisoning

from the oil or their body just not being able to take it.

Another way our ocean is polluted is also from humans. We litter the ocean with garbage from

boats and we pour oil down the storm drains. All the garbage is spread throughout the ocean and it poisons

animals or fish, and birds get caught up in it. When those little plastic rings that hold soda cans together get

into the water birds get them caught in their throats, fish get caught in them. There are many different

things that can hurt the sea life.

In this picture above you can see the way the fish in the sea are affected by our actions. Pollution in the sea

also affects the food chain, fish, and organisms can die of then other fish can’t feed off the extinct fish, and

so on. Preventing water pollution is such an easy task, not very hard, people just have to be aware of what

they throw away our into the water, they can find a garbage can.

I think that all kinds of environmental pollution can be stopped if we all use our heads and just

think before we throw a piece of trash on the ground, throw it into a nearby garbage can. We should look at

our Earth as a precious human being and treat it like it were a child of our own. We should not trash it and

take advantage of it. If we abuse our Earth now who knows how it will get back at us in the future. Saving

the Earth is such a simple task, and I think everyone should be involved in it rich or poor. If we don’t save

our Earth now someday it will be to late. There are programs out there that try to save the Earth, but not

enough people corporate in these programs. If more people supported and joined into these programs

maybe our world wouldn’t be in such danger of dying. If our Earth dies it will surely take us all with it.

Environmental Health, Carleson Lavonne Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1994

Acid Rain, Tyson Peter Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1992

Clean Water, Barass Karen Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1992

“Environmental Pollution” Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia 1996