Dependence Of Man On The Environment: Production And Consumption

The human population is growing rapidly and this is affecting the well-being of our planet. The way people use material resources is another thing that affects the planet. The production and consumption of material resources could bring the earth to an end. The two production habits that I will talk about are the production of paper and production of oil. The production of paper affects forests.

Forests provide homes for numerous numbers of plant and animal species. They also help maintain water quality and stabilize the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forests are not the only ones affected by paper production. The process of papermaking is chemical process. The paper industries release chemicals into water and air. Thrown away paper also affects the environment. In the land-fills paper can decompose and produce methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

Some of the efforts to consider are cut fewer trees down, produce less paper, print on both sides of paper, and start recycling paper. The production of oil can cause severe damage to the environment. Oil waste dumping and oil spills cause serious damage on surrounding wildlife and habitat. The oil production has already harmed many land, air, and sea animal and plant species. The oil pollutes water and kills fish. The production of oil can also affect human life. The damage can include pollution of drinking water, livestock and health of the human body itself.

Beef is a perfect example of using resources wastefully and is causing our environment to be degraded. In the Amazon and other places the rainforests are being cleared in order to raise cattle and about 70 to 80% of the grain that is produced in the United States is fed to livestock. The areas that are being cleared for raising cattle are not so much for local consumptions, but for producing more fast food restaurants in other parts of the globe Reference Turk, J. (2011) Contemporary Environmental Issues. (Section 1. 5) San Diego, CA. Bridgepoint Education, Inc. USA