Worldwide Improvements and Damage to the Environment - Essay Example

Damage to the Environment and Worldwide Improvements (Name) (University) Introduction As the living standards and development gets higher, it is blatantly obvious that the environment will suffer. The more humans attempt to improve the living standards; the environment is influenced in all possible ways (Kirtman et al, 2013). Many hold to the view that the present mankind’s way of life is described by a significant range of advanced facilities that exert profound impacts on the environment (Unsworth & Ormrod, 2013). The environment and worldwide improvements are inevitably important owing to the fact humans are direct influencers and beneficiaries, respectively. For instance, creation of industries for the technological purposes destroys the vegetation around it and also during the manufacturing process, the fumes emitted from those industries affect the people working in the industries as well as the immediate environment around (Maron et al, 2015). Moreover, the usage of the products generated like electronic devices affect the environment in a way that they cause unnecessary radiation which harms the environment (Bischof et al, 2012). Contrariwise, communication is paramount in the contemporary social and work environment; hence the improvement of communication devices, to name a few is imperative. This retrospect paper seeks to discuss the inevitability of environment damage as a result of worldwide improvements (Solow, 2014). Thesis Although attempts to improve human living standards like technology applied in organic agriculture helps reduce food insecurity without affecting the environment, other technological innovations like use of greenhouse lead to environmental damage (Erickson III et al, 2015). The Impacts of Worldwide Improvements on the Environment Impact of Industries and Processing Plants Technological inventions in the present world tend to impact the environment during manufacture and production process. As a matter of fact, the devices of developed have to be processed in industries and factories, in which case the setting up of the facilities requires space (Berrone et al, 2013). In order to have the space required, the vegetation has to be cleared to pave way for the setting up of the facilities. In so doing, the environment around the facility is impacted negatively which can be of adverse effect to a larger area in the long run like destruction of catchment areas (Kiddee ET AL, 2013). For example, 275,000 hectares of vegetation were cleared in Queensland in 2015 in a bid to get more wood for timber industries (Maron et al, 2015). Moreover, the creation of electronic devices uses raw materials that have to be mined. During and after mining, the land is left unstable and vulnerable to earthquakes and also quarries that can cause accidents like in the case of migration of animals like wildebeests (Zhan, 2014). On the other hand, some of the industries set up are of great use to the environment (Slade et al, 2013). For example, industries like biofuel generation plants focus on using waste materials like household wastes that would affect the environment if not disposed well (Oyerinde et al, 2015) The use of Micro-algae to create biofuels for vehicles instead of the petroleum fuels has had a positive impact on the environment (Biller et al, 2012). Besides, some of the industries set up in arid areas help in water for the people around the industry. Since the companies need water for running of the machines, they source water from underground which can then be used in irrigation of the lands closer to the facilities which is an advantage to the environment. As much as we have to admit that the improvements of living standards of human beings through technology impacts the environment positively like in the case of biofuels, the demerits that come with setting up of the industries outweigh the merits. Therefore, we can infer that the damage to the environment in such situations is imperative. Greenhouse Effect In the past few years, there has been reduction in natural farming and increase in horticultural farming (Fankhauser, 2015). This form of farming is a major source of greenhouse gases like carbon (IV) oxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxides (Unsworth & Ormrod, 2013). These gases are responsible for ozone layer depletion in the stratosphere (Bischof et al, 2012). Due to the depletion of the ozone, there has been gradual increase in global warming experienced over the years. This global warming that is on the rise is threatening survival of all forms of life worldwide (Kirtman et al, 2013). For example, there has been a gradual decrease in the sea level which implies that the aquatic life is threatened (Förstner et al, 2013). Besides, the rate at which desertification is taking place due to the change in climate that is attributed to the global warming like prolonged drought is one of the major damages that the environment is facing (Fankhauser, 2013). The generation of clean energy through technology has proved to be quite useful in slowing down the rate of global warming (Meek et al, 2015). This includes clean electricity from solar energy and wind harnessing, powering of vehicles by use of battery power instead of petroleum among many others (Song et al, 2015). As a matter of fact, the use of wind to generate electricity as proposed by the Energy Innovation Hub in the US, provides an excellent source of energy that helps create a world free from carbon and lead substances that pose a danger to the ecosystem (Schulze et al, 2012). Furthermore, strong wind sometimes cause erosion especially in bare lands. Therefore, instead of observing as the environment is destroyed by these winds, it is important that the wind can be harnessed to be useful in some way like pumping of water that can then be used to reclaim land in dry areas. In this way, technology is helping reclaim the trust from the public that it is not wholly harmful (Saboori et al, 2013). Even though technological advancements like clean energy production has proven useful in slowing down the rate of global warming, it is evident that it does not match the rate at which greenhouse gases are produced worldwide (Dunlap et al, 2012). Therefore, it is evident that as much as the improvements of living standards for humans takes place, the environment stand at a risk of being destroyed (IPCC, 2014). Loss of Biodiversity In the recent years, there has been improvements in agriculture in a bid to increase food production for the growing population. This has been achieved through the use of fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals by farmers (Edwards, 2013). The use of these chemicals affect the structure the soil as it affects the composition and thus it cannot be firm enough to resist erosion. Through the erosion, important nutrients are lost and therefore survival of some essential microbes like nitrogen fixing bacteria cease to exist. As this occurs, some plants cannot survive and they can easily be extinct which translates to loss of biodiversity. Contrariwise, the technological advancements in the field of agriculture are of essence to the maintenance of the environment. For example, the recent developments in organic agriculture have proven fruitful in the increase in food production to help curb the food insecurity menace (Kononova, 2013). The innovation in use of organic means of farm management helps alleviate this problem because unlike use of chemicals, it maximizes on the production while minimizing on ecosystem degradation (Shazana et al, 2013). This kind of agriculture helps improve the quality of soil and also stabilize agro-ecosystem. By 2012, the organic market had grown to 51 billion Euros which is a major leap, considering that this form of farming is still a niche production that has only 37 million hectares of land globally that is certified. This only constitutes 0.9 percent of the land used for agriculture worldwide (Solow, 2014). Since it depends on highly biodegradable organic materials, it provides a fix to the already damaged soil by replacing the copper fungicides that are found in fertilizers with the natural botanicals that are disease resistant. The developments in the field of agriculture have proven otherwise that the improvement of human lives do not always lead to damage to the environment but they can also help in regaining the glory the environment once had. Conclusion Conclusively, the innovations that are being developed to better human lives have a negative impact on all the three categories of resources, that is: living resources like destruction of plants and animals, non-living like mineral depletion and finally land resources like during site creation (Solow, 2014). Generally, as much as humans try to improve their lives, like in transportation system, they seem to forget that there exists side effects to it, like the unstable grounds after mining of the crude oil that is raw material for petroleum, emission of fumes during the usage of the vehicles among many other effects (Bischof et al, 2012). Moreover, technology does not only affect human health like when inhaling the fumes in manufacturing plants but also their safety be it at their workplace or their homes like in the case of electric shocks when using and disposing electronic devices (Roberts, 2016). The emission of fumes from industries and dumping of wastes impact the immediate natural environment and later on globally at large (Prather, 2013). References Berrone, P., Fosfuri, A., Gelabert, L., & Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (2013). Necessity as the mother of ‘green’inventions: Institutional pressures and environmental innovations. Strategic Management Journal, 34(8), 891-909. Biller, P., & Ross, A. B. (2012). Hydrothermal processing of algal biomass for the production of biofuels and chemicals. Biofuels, 3(5), 603-623. Bischof, K., & Steinhoff, F. S. (2012). Impacts of Ozone Stratospheric Depletion and Solar UVB Radiation on Seaweeds. In Seaweed Biology (pp. 433-448). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Brennan, L., & Owende, P. 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