" We stand now where two roads diverge.
But the roads are not equally fair. The road we have long been travelling
is deceptively easy, a smooth super highway on which we progress with
great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road-
the one less travelled by- offers our last, our only chance to reach a
destination that assures the preservation of our earth."
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring,1962
Just like every living being and every natural
phenomenon has an influence on each other, our everyday activities influence
the lives of all that's living on this earth. What is different in our
case is that we can see, in many instances, to what extent and in what
direction our activities have this influence. To be aware of the consequences
of the actions we take regarding the lives of all we are sharing the earth
with is very important. We believe that it is also important for children
to see how their daily activities as well as the life we lead as the human
population on earth, affect life on earth as a whole.
Climate Change and the Greenhouse
Effect
What is a greenhouse? It's a kind of building
with a glass roof and glass walls and often with some kind of heating,
used for growing flowers or other plants, which need heat and light. And
how does it work? The sun enters through the glass, heats the greenhouse
and the glass roof and walls keep the heat inside the greenhouse.
The world's atmosphere is covered with a blanket composed of invisible
gases like carbon dioxide, which makes a very similar effect on the earth
like the glass roof and walls of the greenhouse.
Normally, when energy from the sun enters the earth's atmosphere, it is
either absorbed or reflected straight back into space by the surface of
the earth. This depends on the type of surface. While darker areas of
the land and the sea absorb much of the energy, lighter areas of the surface
such as snow, ice and white sand reflects the majority of it. The atmosphere
that surrounds the earth traps the sun's heat near the earth's surface.
Only a small amount of this heat escapes back into space. The rest is
trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases naturally occurring in the
atmosphere (including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone.)
and keeps the earth at a warm temperature.
A very simple way of looking at this process would be through the use
of bouncy balls in a fenced cage. When thrown, some of the balls go through
the fence, while others bounce back to the ground.
Thus the greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon. Without it, the temperature
of the world would be about -18°C. Instead, the average temperature
is 14°C. However, human impact on nature in the recent decades has
caused the amount of those greenhouse gases in the atmosphere surpass
the limits. Every day, we use fossil fuels for heating our homes or for
electricity or for transportation. Right now, most of our societies rely
on the burning of these fossil fuels. The more we use, the more carbon
dioxide is released into the atmosphere which means less of the sun's
energy is released into space, and more is trapped within the atmosphere.
This process is called global warming- gradual increase in the air temperature,
and is seriously threatening animal, plant and human life on earth. Since
the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide has been responsible for about
70% of the now enhanced greenhouse effect.
Since we realized that the temperature of the earth has been rising, experts
have made many predictions of the effects.
* The polar and glacier ice will melt causing
· Rising Tide : As a conservative figure, sea level is predicted
to have risen by half a meter by 2100.
· A lack of the Albedo affect (more energy from the sun absorbed
due to the lack of reflection from ice)
· Loss of habitat for arctic wildlife due to melting of glacier.
* Freak weather!
· As a result of global warming, the average world temperature
is predicted to rise by 3°C by middle of the next century. In the
last 100 years, the temperature has already risen by 0.3°C. By 2100,
4 degrees of temperature will have risen since 1860. This sounds like
a small amount, but the effect is very great. The last ice age, was only
5ºC colder than today!
· 150 million environmental refugees by 2050 due to droughts and
flooding.
· 290 million additional people worldwide at risk from dangerous
malaria in 2080 from unmitigated emissions especially in China and Central
Asia.
* Cyclones
· A computer simulation published in the journal 'Science' suggests
that a 2°C rise in temperature would increase the intensity of storms
by 5 to 12%.
Air pollution
Air travels all the time from place to place
over the earth's surface. The air we breathe now might have been to Canary
islands, Thailand, flew over the Nile before reaching here carried by
winds. It's up to your imagination how our lives here may affect life
in another part of the world - remote wild areas as well as neighbouring
cities.
When we raise the question " what causes air pollution? " it
has several obvious reasons such as fossil fuels like coal burned to produce
electricity, heating for our houses and exhaust gases from motor vehicles,
etc and also many indirect sources...Did you ever imagine how much the
food we eat, the clothes we put on might add to air pollution? They all
go through manufacturing processes in factories, which provides the great
amount of energy it needs to function mostly from fossil fuels.
What is the effect to nature and to us ?
Our climate has been changing since the earth
was formed. There have even been periods in the history when ice sheets
covered large parts of the earth. So now why should the species be in
danger of extinction with that gradual increase in temperature or why
should it be dangerous for human health and so on?
It has been a much more gradual process to reach that temperature for
the earth, it has taken millions of years. The rate of change in the temperature
today - 3°C in 150 years- as mentioned above is extremely rapid compared
to the rate in the old periods. It's above the limits of adaptation for
most species, the animals or plants adapted to living in extreme heat,
cold or altitude may not be able to adjust their behaviours (such as breeding,
feeding, sheltering and migrating) quickly enough to the new temperature
we have caused to rise and may die out. Many wading birds will lose their
habitats for example if sea level rises as little as two centimeters.
Human land usage - cutting down trees for agriculture or for industry
or even for building houses, plowing soils, polluting seas and rivers
and constructing dams, etc) hardly gives those species any chance to shift
away to more appropriate places where they can live. They are trapped
in small islands, in environments in which they cannot survive.
Some examples of this effect on some species
are as follows:
· British birds are laying their eggs
earlier due to warmer springs in the last 20 years. Researchers worry
this may effect survival, if food such as insects are not available when
chicks hatch.
· In Europe, butterflies have shifted their boundaries north over
the past 30 to 100 years, and rising temperatures are killing them at
the southern extreme of their ranges.
· Female caribou migrate in spring to small pockets of vegetation
where they feed and raise their calves. But for the last ten years, spring
has come so early that by the time the caribou reached the coastal plain,
their principal food plant had already gone to seed.
· Global warming has also affected the prey of killer whales off
the coats of Alaska. They now resort to hunting sea otters since sea lions
and harbour have moved away because global warming has altered fish migration
patterns. The loss of sea otters sets off a chain reaction that destroys
kelp beds, an important habitat for many ocean species.
WaterPollution, Water Consumption and Coastal Areas in danger
When it comes to water, what goes around comes
around!
All the living things need water to survive; we humans use it to drink,
to clean ourselves, our homes, our dishes, our cars and to grow food.
However, water consumption by humans has been on the extremes recently
and the world is now facing a serious threat of water shortage.
A huge proportion of the earth's population -2 billion people- have no
access to safe drinking water. Over 4 billion people worldwide have no
running water at home. In some parts of Africa, women and children carry
up to 20 liters of water, often for over 5 hours, from their nearest water
supplies. While in industrialized countries, the average urban homes of
4.6 people use 640 liters of water per day.
What is as thought provoking as this fact is that, the "developed"
world seriously pollutes the water supplies, rivers and seas, putting
the ecological balance in peril. Everyday people are pumping pollution
into different stages of the water cycle: from dumping sewage into the
sea to pouring dangerous chemicals into rivers. Solid wastes from household
and industries dumped into freshwater resources, barrels of oil spilt
into the ocean from supertankers, water used for cooling in manufacturing
processes of factories given back to the rivers are among the factors
of concern causing water pollution.
Related to this fact, the marine life is also in serious danger. Organic
chemicals, such as DDT and PCBs that are used in farming are common contaminants
in marine waters and are responsible for reproductive defects in marine
organisms so their affect is not limited to their close environment only.
Beaches are littered by the disposal of plastic materials on land and
from ships and marine life is seriously damaged, particularly sea mammals,
diving birds and reptiles. Coastal habitats are being destroyed around
the world to make room for urban development or to build agricultural
fields.
Overfishing is also threatening the living creatures of the sea. The living
marine life is subject to extreme pressures from increasingly sophisticated
fishing technologies. Marine mammals worldwide are suffering from heavy
pressure from incidental catches in coastal areas.
The Atlantic Gray Whale and Steller's Sea Cow have been extinct by now
and many other species' such as the blue whale, the northern sea lion,
fin whale and fur seal populations have been declining rapidly.
By using energy more efficiently we will reduce our need for oil, and
thus reduce the chances of a devastating oil spill occurring off our coastline.
The less oil consumed will mean fewer ships coming to our ports, less
travel, less fuel used, less consumption, better world!
Deforestation
Forests are much more than a collection of trees,
they are an entire ecosystem and home to millions of forms of life interacting
with each other - many birds, lions, wolves, ants, insects, fungi and
numerous plant species. We use make of forests for many things in our
lives-paper, medicine, food, material for sheltering, for sitting, gums,
oils, etc. However we are cutting down much more than we are replanting
leaving many birds, wolves and also many poor people living in the forest
homeless.
Deforestation is one of the causes of the excess carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere since plants use it to produce food. Forests also prevent soil
erosion and control water flow in many areas. When the trees are removed
water flows uncontrollably down the hills resulting in floods. One of
the main causes of deforestation is providing space for agriculture however
at this point the fact that soil is not independent from its inhabitants
is missed - when the rainforests are cleared for agriculture, many of
the nutrients necessary for plant life are also destroyed with the forest.
The price of a forest product therefore does not reflect the real environmental
cost -if it had been priced so, we could never afford to pay the cost
of the extinction of many forest species, the floods and the excess amount
of carbon dioxide as we do pay now easily in markets.
What we can do
Only when we look at the whole picture more
carefully we can see how our daily life affects all living beings. We
can realize then, the effect of eating hamburgers on the rainforests where
a large piece of area is deforested to provide space for growing the cattle
from which we eat the beef or the cost of eating bananas in a country
where it has to be brought far from other countries necessitating lots
of transportation because the climate is not appropriate for growing them.
Lots more examples to be given...
You might find it trivial reusing a plastic bag or recycling your newspaper
or closing the tap when you don't use it, you might believe that it won't
change a thing in the whole world. The fact is, each of us can make a
difference and collectively the whole society can make a big difference.
It all starts with the first step.
After all, the decisions we make daily as consumers, as students, as professionals,
and even as parents and home-makers can shape the world.
Stepping stones
· Avoid non-seasonal food, imported from
far away countries.
· Walk, cycle or roller-blade. Bicycles are the most energy-efficient
means of transportation -80% of rider's energy is transformed into motion.
It's fast and it will keep you fit!
· Prefer public transport. Trains and buses pollute less and use
less energy per passenger.
· Think three times before you buy. Think about what you need,
not what you want.
· Reduce, reuse and recycle! Most of the things we throw away can
be reused such as plastic bags, bottles, heaps of paper. The waster material
we produce does not disappear forever when we send them to the dustbin.
They are taken away from where we live, to a remote area, a heavy tractor
or truck is driven over them, and lastly the area is covered with soil.
· Refuse unnecessary packaging in shops, supermarkets, etc. and
avoid as much as possible buying heavy-packaged things. Do you really
need to put you bananas in a separate bag? They have perfect package already.
Did you know that, only 700 paper bags could be produced from a 15-year-old
tree on the average, which would all be used up in only one hour in a
supermarket. As for the plastic bags, remember all that plastic material
used to package goes to the earth in the end, and it takes a lot of time
for them to decompose in the soil.
· Take your unwanted clothes, unused toys, and books to a charity
organization near around. By this way they will be recycled before they
are recycled.
· Use both sides of paper before you send them for recycling and
prefer recycled paper as much as possible.
· Turn it off! A TV set on standby can still use ¼ of the
energy it uses when it is on.
· Switch-off lights when in empty rooms.
· Have a shower not a bath. On average, a bath uses twice as much
water as a shower.
· Wash clothes less often. In this way you will not only use less
water but also cause less detergent and other chemicals dumped into the
sea especially if you live in an area where sewage is pumped untreated
into the sea. Think about the next time you go for a swim.
If everyone consumes whatever s/he has that day, what will happen tomorrow?
The Earth's resources are not limitless. Yes, there are cycles in the
ecosystem and we have renewable resources like water, wind, and air. However,
these resources are getting scarcer day by day because they are getting
polluted and lost day by day causing many kinds of plant and animal life
disappear from the world. Therefore, we have no other option but to consume
in a sustainable manner.