Importance Of Environmental Protection Essay

Keywords: environmental protection, importance of protecting the environment, types of pollution

In recent decades, many environmental problems have increased as the result of human activities and unplanned management of the technological development those interference ecosystems. Therefore, a dispute between the importance of conservation and preservation of ecosystems to protect environment and the necessity to satisfy human desire by sacrifice the environment has been arise across the world. According to Glossary of Environment Statistics the term “environmental protection” can be defined as the prevention to conserve and preserve the standard healthy level of environmental media by reducing the production of pollutants or polluting substances in environmental media (1997, internet).Various human activities have induce many undesirable effects to the environment which can be threatening human health, economic, natural resources and gene pool of ecosystems such as pollutions, greenhouse effect, global warming and soil erosion. In this essay, it is arguable that the environmental protection is worth for fight due to the several reasons. Firstly, the environmental pollution is one of the main reasons why we should fight to protect environment. Besides, global warming is also another reason caused by the deforestation. Furthermore, warm climate change and flood also increase the opportunity of spread out pests and vector diseases.

Pollution can be divided into four types; water pollution, air pollution, thermal pollution and sound pollution. Fossils fuels used in most factories, petroleum and gas usage for vehicle is the major cause of air pollution. Environment pollution can also be an addition harmful substance that could affect human health and human life (Gan, 2006, 311). Given the above, environmentalist should fight for a better environment because pollutions caused by burning of fossil fuels will results in severe environmental problems such as the occurrence of acid rain due to the production of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen monoxide (NO). Casiday and Frey mentioned that combustion process not only increases the concentration of carbon dioxide(CO2) in the atmosphere but it is also the main source in producing high level of nitrogen monoxide(NO) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). These are the two major reactants that cause the formation of acid rain. Acidity of acid rain changes the pH of the river water and lakes which then disrupt the nature habitat of aquatic organisms and reduce the chance of survival of aquatic organisms, for example fishes cannot survive due to lack of oxygen. In addition, the insoluble aluminum ions added to the water can causes water to become poisonous which can also be known as water pollution (1998, internet). For example, Norway has blamed that the sea and lakes are poisoned by the formation of acid rain for many years due to the unclean air pollution that comes from Britian’s power stations (Nova Science In The News, 1997, internet).

Since the global concentration of carbon dioxides have increased given the reasons of combustion of fossil fuels and also human activities such as deforestation. The reasons for deforestation are usually resulted from cutting down the forests for lumber logging and also for building a new farming for animal. Forest can also be known as “carbon sink” because trees can be used as an absorber of carbon dioxide in the environment and in returns release some oxygen to the atmosphere. However, unplanned deforestation activities have significantly reduced the concentration of oxygen (O2) and caused the rise in temperature of the Earth. Christopher Monckton also emphasises that every doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is sufficient to rise the global surface temperature by 3.26 °C (2008, 3). Rise in global temperature will significantly caused ice melting, for instance, according to the My Eco Project Organization, the reports of ice melting at Arctic Retreat prepares in the late summer 2007 surprised the experts that every week, the Arctic sea ice is continuously melting and the amount of melted ice can fill up to as large as two Britain country (2009, internet). Meanwhile, the consequence of ice melting at Arctic has increased the sea water levels. According to the evidence gathered by Shepherd and his team, they found that the sea water level has increased by 2.6% which has the same volume with 49 microns per year spread across the oceans from over the world due to the distinct value between the density and temperature of ice and sea water (University Of Leeds, 2010, internet). In addition, the polar bear will also face extinction in the future due to global warming. Based on the report from National Geographic News, several studies that have been conducted by the U.S. government has show that melting of Arctic’s ice that caused by the global warming will endangered two-thirds of the world’s polar bears and cause them to face extinction by 2050 (Roach, 2007, 1). Given the above fact, environmentalist should fight for a better environment and save our earth.

Furthermore, environmental protection should be implemented due to warm climate changes and flood which heighten the risks of spread out pests and vector diseases. Some infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera and encephalitis can also spread out rapidly throughout the whole area by mosquitoes, flies and other insects those usually adapt to live in warm weather region. As World Health Organization notes that contamination of water resources due to the occurrence of flood enlarge the chances of getting water-borne diseases and also for mosquitoes to carry disease around the environment (2010, internet). Malaria and dengue fever have threaten the Southeast Asia and South Pacific island due to the climate change as increases the population of mosquitoes and migration of refugees (Allianz Knowledge Partnership,2008.internet). Hence, it can be concluded that flood and climate change will destroy our safety health environment. Moreover, high temperature in the river will encourage the growth of algal broom and causes the water pollution index to increases and decrease the amount of oxygen supplied for the aquatic organisms. Since the river water pollution increases dramatically, the level of biochemical oxygen demand which known as BOD level also will increases. The higher the biochemical oxygen demand level will result in the higher of the pollution level. For instance, large amount of blue-green algae devastate the nature of the universal solvent and threaten the public health by releasing toxins into the water. Diseases and infection that can cause by the algae’s toxin are sore throats, gastro-enteritis and skin or eye-infections (Department Of The Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water, 2010, internet).

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are several factors described above that strongly supported the argument to fight for environmental protection and create a better environment. Some of the reasons include environmental air pollution which increases the concentration of carbon dioxide that caused the formation of acid rain. Another reason is one of the side effects like global warming caused by the deforestation which increases the global temperature caused the occurrence of ice melting. Moreover, the global warming change the climate become warmer and flood encouraged the growth of the pests and vectors like malaria and dengue fever to spread the disease out to the environment which increases the level of biochemical oxygen demand. Therefore, the environment should be protected for a better life in future.