20 Examples of Environmental Problems

The environmental problems They are natural phenomena (or man-made) that negatively affect the conservation of ecosystems, or that pose a threat to the lives of living beings. For example: polar melt, deforestation, climate change.

Most environmental problems derive from unplanned action of man, whose global urban growth increasingly demands natural resources of all kinds: water, energy, land, organic and minerals.

Environmental problems often go unnoticed until their consequences become very evident, through natural disasters, ecological tragedies, global threats or severe risks to human beings' own health.

Examples of environmental problems

Destruction of the ozone layer. This phenomenon of lowering the ozone barrier in the atmosphere that filters and deflects ultraviolet rays from the sol is a very well documented one from decades ago, when air pollution by gas release began to catalyze the decomposition of ozone into oxygen, a phenomenon normally slow in the heights. However, a partial recovery of it has recently been announced.

1. Deforestation. A third of the planet is covered with woods Y jungles, which represents a gigantic plant lung renewing daily the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Sustained and indiscriminate logging not only threatens this very important chemical balance, essential for life, but also leads to the destruction of habitats animals and loss of soil absorption. It is estimated that 129 million plant hectares have been lost in the last decade and a half.
2. Climate change. Some theories suggest that it is due to sustained pollution over decades, others that it is part of a planetary cycle. Climate change as a phenomenon points to the substitution of dry climates for rainy ones and vice versa, to the migration of temperatures and water redistribution, all of which have considerable effects on human populations, accustomed for centuries to a stable regional climate.
3. Air pollution. Air pollution levels have multiplied in recent decades, as a result of the energy industry of hydrocarbons and the engines combustion, which release tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere, thus deteriorating the very air we breathe.
4. Water contamination. The release of chemical substances and toxic waste from industry to lakes and rivers, is a triggering factor for acid rains, extinctions biological and the depotabilization of water, which then requires extreme measures to enable its consumption, necessary for the support of the organic life all types.

1. Soil depletion. The successive monocultures and forms of farming intensive that, through various technological methods, maximize production without considering the need for alternation of the soil, sow a future problem, since without rest the soils they exhaust their nutrients and plant life becomes more difficult in the medium term. Such is the case of the soybean monoculture, for example.
2. Radioactive waste generation. Nuclear plants generate tons of radioactive waste daily dangerous for human, plant and animal, also endowed with long periods of activity that exceed the durability of their usual containers of lead. How to dispose of these wastes with the minimum environmental impact is a challenge to face.
3. Generation of non-biodegradable garbage. Plastics, polymers and other complex forms of industrial materials have particularly long lives until they finally biodegrade. Considering that tons of plastic bags and other disposable items are produced daily, the world will have less and less room for so much long-lived garbage.

1. Polar melt. It is not known if it is a product of global warming or if it is the end of an ice age, but the truth is that the poles are melting, increasing the level of water from the oceans and jeopardizing established coastal boundaries, as well as arctic life and Antarctica.
2. Expansion of deserts. Many deserted zones They are growing gradually as a result of drought, deforestation and global warming. This is not in contradiction with brutal flooding elsewhere, but neither option is healthy for life.
3. Overpopulation. In a world of limited resources, the unstoppable growth of the human population is an environmental problem. In 1950 the total human population did not reach 3 billion, and by 2012 it already exceeds 7. The population has tripled in the last 60 years, which also augurs a future of poverty and competition for the resources.

1. Ocean acidification. It is about the rise of pH of ocean waters, as a product of substances added by the human industry. This has an effect similar to that of human osteoporosis in marine species and the growth of some types of algae and plankton proliferates over others, breaking the trophic balance.
2. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics. It may not be an environmental problem at all, since it mainly affects human health, but it is an evolutionary consequence of the sustained misuse of chemicals. antibiotics for decades, which has led to the creation of bacteria more resilient that could not only wreak havoc on man, but most higher animal populations as well.
3. Generation of space debris. Although it may not seem like it, this problem started at the end of the 20th century and promises to be problematic in future eras, as the belt of space debris that already begins to surround our planet is enlarged with the successive satellites and remnants of space missions that, once used and discarded, remain orbiting our planet.

1. Depletion of nonrenewable resources. Hydrocarbons, above all, are organic material formed over eons of tectonic history and are have employed so intensely and carelessly that in the near future they will have been employed in their whole. What environmental effects that brings, remains to be seen; but the race to find ways to Alternative energy it doesn't always point to greener solutions.
2. Plant genetic impoverishment. The work of genetic engineering in agricultural crops may seem like a short-term solution to maximize the production of food with which to satisfy a growing human population, but in the long run causes the deterioration of the genetic variability of cultivated plant species and also negatively impacts competition between species, since it applies a criterion of artificial selection that impoverishes the plant biodiversity of the region.
3. Photochemical contamination. This occurs in large industrialized cities, where there are few winds to disperse pollution. air, and a lot of UV incidence that catalyzes highly reactive and toxic oxidant reactions for life organic. This is called photochemical smog.

1. Fragmentation of natural habitats. The growth of the urban area, in addition to mining activities and sustained logging, have destroyed numerous natural habitats, leading to the impoverishment of the area. biodiversity worldwide at a worrying rate.
2. Greenhouse effect or global warming. This theory assumes that the increase in world temperature is the product of the destruction of the ozone layer (and a higher incidence of UV rays), as well as high levels of CO₂ and others gases in the atmosphere, which prevent the release of ambient heat, thus leading to many of the scenarios already described.
3. Extinction of animal species. Either by indiscriminate hunting, animal trade or consequence of the contamination and the destruction of their habitats, there is currently talk of a possible sixth great extinction of species, this time the product of mankind. The list of endangered species is very extensive and, according to surveys of biologists specialized in the area, a 70% of the world's animal species could be disappearing by the middle of the century if action is not taken protectionists.

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