17.

MO - Environmental issues
The environment is a complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and
living things) that act upon an organism and ultimately determine its form and survival. Studying
the environment means studying the relationships among these various things. An example of
interactions between non-living and living things is plants getting their minerals from the soil and
making food using sunlight. It is undeniable that we should take care of the environment
because we need it for our existence as there is no other planet we could live on. Despite that,
there are environmental issues. What causes them is acid rain, the ozone layer, chemicals in
farming, cutting down the rainforests, and more. The most discussed issue is global warming.
Global warming means that average air and water temperature is rising. It is caused by external
influences like dangerous UV radiation, volcanic eruptions, and greenhouse gases. Consequences
of global warming are that sea and ocean levels are rising in virtue of melting glaciers or that the
acidity of seas is rising because of a higher amount of carbon dioxide in the air. People who want
to help our environment, at least a little, are trying not to waste, recycle or even invest in
renewable energy. But to stop global warming completely, humans would have to stop burning
fossil fuels and use only renewable energy.
So here comes the question, how can we be eco-friendly. The answer is that we should change
the way we live. People should travel less by airplanes. More trees should be planted, because of
cutting down the forests. In the future, cars should run on natural fuels that would not pollute
the air, or factory waste should be disposed of safely. But there are also little things everyone
can do, like having a bottle we would pour our drink to, instead of buying bottled water. Then we
can have cloth bags we would use when we go shopping, instead of taking plastic ones in shops.
Another tip may be reducing buying products with plastic packaging. Then for saving some
energy, we should turn the lights off when we are leaving a room, or we should not leave a
charger plugged in when it is not needed.
We have two types of energy sources – renewable and non-renewable. Non-renewable energy
sources produce energy in traditional power plants, which means coal and oil-burning power
plants. These power plants are not good for our planet as they release pollutants into the air, but
they produce the most energy. Despite that, I believe that renewable energy will fully replace
them in the future. Renewable energy can be produced by nature, for example, a wind turbine,
solar panels, or tidal wave. An advantage of this type of energy is that it does not harm nature,
but its disadvantage is that these power plants do not produce as much energy as the traditional
ones. Another type of energy is nuclear energy that is good for nature, but is expensive and
generates nuclear waste that takes a long time to dispose of. Nuclear energy can also be
dangerous for people because of radiation that can escape when an accident happens.
Environmental issues also have an impact on plants and animals. The deterioration of the
environment affects, for example, animal species, some of them get endangered, which is a
result of human activity like destroying their natural habitat. Another thing that threatens
animals is poaching because of some part of an animal body like tusks. A lot of animals are also
hunted for meat or used for some testing. Today the most endangered species are rhinos,
dolphins, or gorillas. To protect them, we can create reserves, or there are also some
conservation programs in zoos. In some cases, it is better to keep endangered species in
captivity.