LAND- How are humans affecting the environment?

Since farming began, 10,000 years ago, many wild landscapes have been transformed to create fields for crops and raising animals. Swamps and coastal marshes have been drained. Forests have been felled and grasslands have been plowed. However, removing tree and plant roots that help to bind the soil can make the soil loose and crumbly. High winds may then blow it away, or heavy rain may wash it into rivers. In some areas, soil erosion has turned fertile farmland into barren wastes.

In the 1700s, the dawn of the industrial age revolutionized methods of manufacturing and made them more efficient. Since then, factories have been built all over the world. Factories consume huge amounts of natural resources and energy, and many give off chemical waste, which creates problems such as air and water pollution, and global warming.

All over the world, factories, power plants, farms, businesses, and homes produce huge amounts of pollution by releasing chemicals and other substances that pollute, or dirty, the natural environment. As people’s use of energy and other resources grows, the Earth is becoming more polluted.

Industrial waste, sewage, and chemical pesticides from farms seep into streams and rivers. Cars, factories, and power plants burning fossil fuels give off fumes that pollute the air. Chemicals called CFCs (short for chlorofluorocarbons), used to make refrigerators and aerosol sprays, destroy the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful sunlight. Household and other waste buried underground pollutes the land.

Global warming will melt some of the polar ice caps, bringing greater risk of floods to low-lying and coastal regions worldwide. Heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, and torrential rain will become more common. To prevent global warming, many countries are now trying to reduce their output of carbon dioxide and use renewable energy sources.

Deforestation is typically a side effect of human activities such as logging, agriculture or land development. It can have a significant effect on the local ecosystem, from further stressing an already threatened species to upsetting the soil where trees once stood. Because trees support the lives of countless organisms and play a major role in maintaining the stability of a region, their removal has a wide range of effects.