The Abused Planet Nowadays, all nations are talking about climate change. There several treaty that were signed by many nations in order to stop global warming. Global warming is caused by various reasons. First is the carbon emission. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere every time we burn fossil fuels such as gas, oil or coal. Carbon dioxide is re-absorbed by plants and trees in the surroundings. However, we are doing so quickly that plants and trees that are alive now have no chance of soaking up by burning fuels where the carbon dioxide has been trapped under the earth's surface millions of years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased greatly since human beings began burning large amounts of coal and petroleum in the nineteenth century. In more recent times, this source of carbon dioxide emissions has increased very fast, while destruction of forests has also become a major source of carbon dioxide. Atmospheric concentrations of several other gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, have also been increased recently by human activities and are contributing to greenhouse warming of the planet. Global warming or the temperature of the planet is increasing is the effect of all this extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The climate is changing everyday in unpredictable ways from floods hurricanes to heat waves and droughts while the average global temperature is increasing (Torchbox, 2015).
Another one is the water pollution. Water pollution can be defined in many ways. It means that one or more substances have built up in water to such an extent that they can cause problems not only for the people but also for the animals too. Other inland waters such as Oceans, lakes, rivers can naturally clean up a certain amount of pollution by distributing it harmlessly. For example, the ink would quickly disappear into the river’s much larger volume of clean water if you poured a cup of black ink into a river. In a such low concentration that you would not able to see it, but the ink would still be there in the river. The chemicals in the ink probably would not present any real problem at such low levels. However, the river would quickly turn back if you poured gallons of ink into a river every few seconds through pipe. We think of huge oceans, lakes, and river if when we think of Earth’s water resources and they are called surface waters. The most obvious type of water pollution affects surface waters, just like a oild tanker that spilled out and creates an oil slick that can affect a vast area of the ocean. Underground rock structures known as aquifers or a body of permeable rock that can contain or transmit groundwater which we cannot see and seldom think about is a great deal of water. Aquifers feed our rivers and supply much of our drinking water. The water would become polluted, for example, when weed killers used in people’s gardens drain into the ground. Pollution affects water resources by the surface waters and groundwater. We would be able to know if the water is polluted if we will to take a samples of the water and measure the concentration of a different chemicals that it contains. We can regard the water as polluted if the chemicals are dangerous or the concentrations are too great. Examining the fish, insects, and other invertebrates that the water will support is another way to measure water quality in order to know if the water is polluted. Most water pollution doesn’t begin in the water itself. Any human activity can have an effect in the quality of our water environment. The chemicals they use are gradually washed by rain into the groundwater or surface water nearby, when farmers fertilize the fields. Atmospheric deposition or chemicals that released by smokestacks and enter the atmosphere and then fall back to earth as rain, entering seas, rivers, and lakes and causing water pollution (Woodford, 2017).
Climate change is very alarming and we need to take action for it to stop. Because we all know that we humans are the main reasons why the climate is changing. According to (Greenpeace.org, 2018), fortunately there is practical, achievable action we can take now to minimise the amount of greenhouse gases reaching the upper atmosphere, and that is to step up our use of clean energy, like wind, wave, tidal and solar energy. We need low carbon economy with minimal use of fossil fuels. According to the research, we already have the potential to produce everything we need to get us there, but were just lacking the political action and inverstment to support a clean energy future. The first thing we can do is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use. We need to use the energy we get from coal, oil and gas, and that means increasing the efficiency of the things in our life that use like appliances, cars, buildings and factories. Making our energy production more efficient is another huge step. Next we need to step up our use of clean energy like wind, wave, tidal and solar energy. Equally important is a new smart national power grid capable of integrating all these different sources. We also need to redesign our transport system by improving and increasing the use of public transport, stopping airport expansion and massively increasing the efficiency of our petrol driven vehicles, and then replacing them, first with hybrids, and ultimately electric vehicles. Climate change is a big challenge for the planet, and requires action at a large scale by all levels of government and business, but there are many things that you can do reduce your own energy consumption and promote smart energy choices in the community. But the most important is we should try to cut trees minimally, because it would not only affect us but also out beloved planet.