UNIT 1 science Individual project - Essay Example

The world has undergone tremendous changes in the past few centuries. Known knowledge, technologies, beliefs and approaches to various issues have all been changed drastically and dramatically. These great changes include two important revolutions which both had a major impact on the world- the Industrial Revolution and the Environmental Revolution.The first of the two was the former- the Industrial Revolution, taking place in the 18th century. This revolution started in Britain and in time spread throughout the world.

It was, as defined and well known to all, "a major shift of technologic, socioeconomic and cultural conditions". This revolution meant replacing the economy, which was built on manual labor, to one which is dominated by industry and by manufacturing machinery. This, in turn, led scientists to build more and more machines, tools and buildings with new function, which decreased the workload of workers but also had a negative affect on nature (HighBeam Encyclopedia, 2004). This led to the latter of the revolutions- the Environmental Revolution.

The environmental revolution is something which has been taking place and occurring more lately. Since the quantity of research and data proving how detrimental some technologies and machines are is abundant, more and more people are opting to fight for the noble cause of trying to heal our planet and to uproot and stop those responsible for the ecological degradation and increasingly more imminent destruction of our world. These people are called environmentalists, and their purposes include minimizing pollutions, preserving and protecting nature from detrimental people, machines and buildings and fighting to add more ecologic-friendly laws to the constitution and by doing so, legitimizing and reinforcing their claims by legislation.

This revolution is closely and tightly bound to the term environmentalism, which is "a concern for the preservation, restoration and improvement of the natural environment, such as the preservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and certain land use actions". This activism for nature and ecology was first recorded in India 400 years ago, when Indian men embraced death in order to protest and try to stop the cutting of trees in their forest by the kings men of that region. Modern environmentalism started in the mid to late 19th century in the United States with two preservationists starting to fight for the environment.

One of them was a writer who writings were read by millions, and therefore became more known to people (HighBeam Encyclopedia, 2004). In time, more and more people from different countries around the world rose up and protested the dangers to nature and the disasters this world is facing as a result of mechanized and other modern technologies and tools. Generally speaking, it can be said that while the Industrial Revolution improved our way of life but negatively affected nature and ecology, the Environmental Revolution seeks to reprimand the damages caused to the world by the Industrial Revolution, and this is to be achieved by helping to protect and preserve the environment, by paying closer attention and fighting to change the perception of the average person about nature and making every person aware of the fact that actions and technologies which started with the Industrial Revolution or evolved from it, are leading to the closer and closer demise of our world.

This demise of the world is quickly approaching and becoming more apparent. One of the many causes is the impact human interference has on biogeochemical cycles. The ecosystem is a fragile system whose balance depends on many things, and disrupting or changing even one component in the ecosystem can have extremely detrimental effects on the entire ecological system. Three important elements are carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.Carbon is one of the most common elements in the world and is the basis of all living organisms.

It is found in the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. There are four main reservoirs of stored carbon in the carbon cycle. These are: carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, organic compounds in live or recently dead organisms, dissolved carbon dioxide in oceans and other bodies of water and as calcium carbonate in limestone and buried organic matter (natural gas, peat, coal and petroleum). Since carbon is so essential for so many things, and fills so many functions, the effect of human activities is most destructive as it disturbs the cycle of the carbon.

Human activities produce more carbon dioxide than the lands and oceans can absorb, and this is dangerous because as a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is a main ingredient in global warming. It actually accounts for about 55% of the change in the intensity of the greenhouse effect. Excessive rates of carbon dioxide lead to more radiation trapped in the atmosphere, and this leads to more heat energy being produced. This directly leads to the intensification of catastrophes like heavy rainfalls, aggravated El Nino and La Nina, droughts, floods.

Also, the increased heat leads to a rise in sea levels due to the melting of icebergs, and this puts millions at risk of suffering floods who may swallow whole cities, and even some island states! This means that island countries could be completely drowned under water, resulting in a huge humanitarian crisis. Furthermore, more damages will take place, such as beach erosion and, loss of wetlands and marshes, and even extinction of many species that are native to coastal habitats. All of these horrific results and so many more occur as man creates more carbon dioxide and intervenes in the cycle of carbon (*).

Nitrogen is another important element which plays important roles in non-biological systems as well as in biological ones. This gas exists in proteins of living organisms, and makes up 80% of the Earths atmosphere. Some nitrogen is converted to ammonia, ammonium and nitrate ions that are primary sources to nitrogen compounds of all living things. The compounds are absorbed and used to produce proteins in animals and plants. When an animal dies, the proteins can be broken down and digested by microbes to become ammonia.

The ammonia is oxidized into nitrites and then oxidized again by nitrifying bacteria into nitrites. Denitrifying bacteria can reduce nitrites to nitrogen in the air. As for human impact on nitrogen cycles, human activities such as burning fossil fuels in cars, using and producing nitrogen fertilizers, power generation plants and industries greatly increases nitrogen cycling. This leads to greater amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, as well as other nitric oxides. This causes soils and waters of streams and lake to become acids.

Also, though more plants are growing because of the existence of further nitrogen, harmful plants cause a reduction in the level of oxygen in the water and the amount of sunlight that reaches inside the water. This leads to the suffocation of animals due to lack of water and also reduces the chances the plants in the water will be able to photosynthesize because there is less sunlight (*).Phosphorus is yet another important element which is almost never independent and is usually mixed and bound to other elements.

One of these combinations of phosphorus with other elements is that of the adenosine triphosphate, an essential source of energy to the body. It is found in the muscles, blood and nerves. Moreover, calcium phosphate is a principal material in bones and teeth. When human actions cause extra phosphorus to be created, it causes problems especially in aquatic systems. The ecological effects resulted by those problems are decreased biodiversity, invasion of new species, toxicity and more (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2004).

In conclusion, the development of industrialization following the Industrial Revolution may have helped increase mans quality of life in some areas, but meanwhile it started causing many different problems to all kinds of ecological systems all over the world in the land, water, air and atmosphere of the Earth. This eventually led to environmentalism and to the Environmental Revolution, whose objective is to save the Earth from ecological disasters. As seen, human activities result in excesses of lack of important elements which affect ecosystems and may very well destroy them entirely.

The problems caused are innumerous, and could lead to serious catastrophes from which there will be no going back. This is why there must be more attention to this matter, in order to help environmentalists save the Earth before we dont even have a chance to do so.ReferencesColumbia Encyclopedia (2004). Phosphorus. Columbia Encyclopedia (Vol. 20, p.100) HighBeam Encyclopedia (2001). Environmentalism. HighBeam Encyclopedia (Vol. 7, p. 80-82). HighBeam Encyclopedia (2001). Industrial Revolution.

HighBeam Encyclopedia (Vol. 10, p. 36-38). *