Environmental issues have been prioritized in the last decade because of the alarming destruction that human activities have had on the environment. Global warming, water and air pollution are some of the environmental concerns that affect me on a daily basis. Global warming has affected me by its interference with the weather patterns. Water and air pollution have affected me since I see their effects in terms of related illnesses affecting people in our neighborhood. Some of the diseases include asthma attacks, bronchitis, E Coli infection and other food poisoning cases due to consuming polluted water.
Global warming is the gradual rising in temperatures when green house gases that include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and water vapor are trapped within the earth’s atmosphere. This has caused the melting of the icecaps which have led to a rise in sea levels. Other effects of global warming are changing weather patterns which have caused flooding, heat waves and drought.
Water pollution is the introduction of harmful substances to water bodies like lakes, oceans and rivers making them unsafe for living things. Polluted water causes diarrhea and cholera among other water born diseases in humans while for aquatic animals and plants it may lead to death of growth of resistant fungi and bacteria which compete with existing organisms.
Another environmental concern is air pollution; this is contamination of the environment both indoors and outdoors by physical, biological or chemical agents (Marquita, 2010). Major pollutants include carbon (II) oxide; nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide which are responsible for acid rain. Pollutants in the air have been blamed for an increase in respiratory diseases such as lung cancer.
References
Marquita, K. (2010). Understanding Environmental Pollution. Cambridge: CUP
