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The Environment

The Environment. Presented by Percival Hanley For RYLA St Kitts Nevis 2010. What is the Environment?. The circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms The complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community

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The Environment

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  1. The Environment Presented by Percival Hanley For RYLA St Kitts Nevis 2010

  2. What is the Environment? • The circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms • The complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community • There is the Natural Environment and the Built environment

  3. The Natural Environment • We live in a bountiful and beautiful world. Ours is a unique and irreplaceable planet on whose life-sustaining systems we are totally dependent. • The natural environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished by components: - Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries. - Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from human activity. • The natural environment is contrasted with the built environment, which comprises the areas and components that are strongly influenced by humans. A geographical area is regarded as a natural environment, if the human impact on it is kept under a certain limited level.

  4. The Built Environment • The term built environment refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to neighborhoods and cities, and can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy and road networks. • The environment of people and other animals includes not only the physical conditions that surround them but also the social or cultural conditions that influence them.

  5. Environmental Quality • Environmental quality is a general term which can refer to varied characteristics that relate to the natural environment as well as the built environment, such as air and water purity or pollution, noise and the potential effects which such characteristics may have on physical and mental health caused by human activities.

  6. Environmental Quality • Everything is interrelated – what effects one part of the environment inevitably affects all of the other sectors of the environment. • So pollution of the air not only affects the air and the creatures in it, but it also affects the water. Polluted water affects the creatures in and around the water and also the land.

  7. The Human Factor • From time to time we should pause to remember that, in spite of the challenges and complications of life on Earth, we are incredibly lucky to be here. We should ask ourselves: what is our proper place in nature? What ought we to do and what can we do to protect the irreplaceable habitat that produced and supports us? • The responsibility for our environment rests with each of us as individuals and what we DO or OMIT TO DO to our environment.

  8. To thrive, plants and animals need clean air, uncontaminated water, and wholesome nutrients. • Pollution in the biosphere – those parts of the air, water, and land in which life exists – has become a serious problem because the earth is a closed system. Its supplies of air and water are used again and again. • When these resources are polluted, all life in the biosphere are threatened.

  9. Environmental Issues • Water – One of the unique features that make our earth very special and which is probably one of the most important factors in the creation and support of life as we know it, is the presence of water. • Water is the most common substance on the Earth and covers approximately 71% of its surface. • But only about 3% of all of Earth’s water is freshwater. However, 99.5% of that is locked away in continental ice. • Therefore fresh water is a very, very scarce resource! • We need to protect and conserve our fresh water supplies.

  10. Water Pollution • Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies (e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans and groundwater). • Water pollution affects plants and organisms living in these bodies of water; and, in almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and populations, but also to the natural biological communities. • Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds. • Water pollution is a major problem in the global context. It has been suggested that it is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases, and that it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily.

  11. Air Pollution • Air pollution or atmospheric pollution is the degradation of air quality, indoors and out. • There are many natural sources of air quality degradation: • Volcanoes spew out ash, acid mists, hydrogen sulphide, and other toxic gases. • Sea spray and decaying vegetation are major sources of reactive sulfur compounds in the air. • Forest fires create clouds of smoke that blanket whole continents. • Pollen, spores, viruses, bacteria, and other small bits of organic material in the air cause widespread suffering from allergies and airborne infections.

  12. Storms in arid regions raise dust clouds that transport millions of tons of soil and can be detected half a world away. • Bacterial metabolism of decaying vegetation in swamps and of cellulose in the guts of termites and ruminant animals is responsible for as much as two-thirds of the methane (natural gas) in the air.

  13. While the natural sources of suspended particulate material in the air outweigh human sources at least tenfold worldwide, in many cities more than 90% of the airborne particulate matter is anthropogenic (human caused): • Motor vehicle emissions • Livestock farms • Manufacturing by-products • Petrochemical factories • Decaying Solid waste • Agricultural practices and chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides. • Chloroflourocarbons

  14. Effects of Air Pollution • Ozone layer depletion form chloroflourocarbons causing global warming • Heart attacks, respiratory diseases, lung cancer, eye irritation, skin irritation, mutations • Acid rain, affecting water quality and the aquatic creatures, soil and plants • Forest depletion • Visibility reduction • Buildings and monuments by atmospheric acids, smoke and soot

  15. Land Pollution • Solid waste – industrial and municipal • Sewage and sewage sludge • Chemicals, paints, oils, plastics, cleaning solvents, pesticides and herbicides • Hazardous waste

  16. What can we do? • Environmental education – “Know your environment, or there will be NO environment” • Recycling • Reducing waste, conservation • Live and work in harmony with nature • Keep our immediate environs clean and healthy. • Respect others’ space • Legislation re pollution and environmental issues • Reducing or controlling population growth • Respect and protect natural ecosystems

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