Causes of Environmental Damages

The environmental crisis is one very concrete problem that threatens the existence of
various species, including our own, currently inhabiting this world. The many possible causes of the
environmental crisis can be broadly classified into four types: the physical, legal, socioeconomic, and
attitudinal causes.

1. The physical causes refer to those causes that can in principle be studied by the sciences.
They are, in this regard, observable and quantifiable, and their processes are governed by
the deterministic laws of nature. Physical causes can either be natural or human-induced.

a. Natural physical causes is brought about solely by the processes of nature. This means
that they happen independently of any human intervention or regardless of any human
action. The natural physical causes include, among others, the following:
 Earthquakes
 Forest
 Fires
 Tsunamis
 Volcanic eruptions
 Dry seasons
 Pests
b. Human-induced physical causes is brought about by human intervention in the
processes of nature. These human-induced physical causes include, among others,
 Pollution
 Global warming
 Depletion of natural resources
 Emission of toxic substances in the atmosphere
 Dumping of nonbiodegradable waste materials into the oceans and rivers, and
oil spills

The following are some of the world’s major environmental disasters whose
causes are human-induced

1.) Chernobyl Power Plant Explosion. The explosion of the power plant in
Ukraine on April 26, 1986 is regarded as the worst nuclear power plant
disaster in history. The explosion resulted in a nuclear meltdown that sent
massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, reportedly more than
the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That radiation drifted westward,
across what was then Soviet Russia toward Europe. Since then, thousands of
kids along the area have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
2.) Union Carbide Pesticide Plant Accident. The accidenr, which happened in
Bhopal, India on December 2, 1984 resulted I 45 tons of poisonous methyl
isocyanate escaping from the facility. This is regarded as the worst industrial
disaster so far in history. Just within hours after the accident , thousands
died and more followed over the following months. About 15,000 people
died and many of those who survived suffered various kinds of diseases such
blindness, organ failure, and other bodily malfunctions. And a high number
of children in the area have been born with all kinds of birth defects.
 3.) Kuwaiti Oil Fires. The oil fires in Kuwait resulted in poisonous smoke, soot,
and ash, black rain, and lakes of oil, killing many livestock and other animals
near the area. The oil fires, which lasted for seven months, were due to
Saddam Hussein’s order to blow up approximately 600 oil wells in Kuwait
during the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
4.) The Love Canal Tragedy. The contamination of Love Canal, a village with
hundreds of houses and a school located near Niagara Falls in upstate New
York, in 1978. Love Canal happened to sit atop 21,000 tons of toxic industrial
waste that had been buried underground in the 1940’s and ‘50s by a local
company. Over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and
cellars. The residents suffered many kinds of illness.
5.) Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The oil spill from the Exxon Valdez oil tanker on March
24, 1989 in Alaska killed hundreds of birds, fish, seals, otters, and other
animals. Around 10.8 million galloons of oil were spilled into the sea.
2. The legal causes include existing laws of the land that have something to do with the
environment. They, however, also include the absence of laws that would effectively
prohibit practices damaging to the environment, and of legal mechanisms that would
effectively punish those violating existing environmental laws, especially those occupying
positions of power such as public officials and private corporations. The legal causes of the
environment crisis, in this consideration, thus generally refer to those causes of the crisis
that are within the control of the government.
3. The socioeconomic causes are factors that are bought abut by social arrangements and the
economic status of human persons. Such causes include over-population, which naturally
results in the competition over limited resources, which in turn contributes to the depletion
of these resources. They also include poverty. For because of poverty, people most often
prefer cheap but non-environment-friendly products and practices. In what follow, Jack
Hollander, in his book The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, is the
Environment’s Number One Enemy (2003, 2), further explains why poverty is a serious cause
of the environmental crisis.
Poverty is the environmental villain; poor people are its victims. Impoverished people often
do plunder their resources, pollute their environment, and overcrowd their habitats. They
do these things not out of willful neglect but only out of the need to survive.
4. The attitudinal causes refer to the beliefs and values held by humans about nature that allow
them or make it permissible for them to cause damages to the natural environment.
Examples of these beliefs are the following: that natural resources are these simply for
human consumption of to satisfy human interests; the only humans can be recipients of
moral duties; that natural resources are inexhaustible or are unlimited (some call this belief
Frontierism), and that we are only responsible for those parts of nature that are owned by
humans or are governed by property rights of humans. In her book, Resurgence of the Real
(1997, 219-220), Charlene Spretnak identifies the following values and beliefs that support
the industrial and agricultural practices that exploit people and the environment (quoted in
Coates 2003):
 Homo Economicus: the belief that economic well-being is primary and will bring
about well-being in all other areas…
 Progressivism: the belief that the human condition will gradually imorive through
abundance, included with this belief is an unquestioned trust that technology will
solve all human problems
 Industrialism: the belief that mass-production and rationally designed institutions
and programs are the best way to perfect human consumption
 Consumerism: the belief that well-being is achieved through abundance and
consumption. The unquestioned acceptance of advertising and the near religious
dedication attached to shopping in ‘Western’ societies is the product of “the
relentless advertising campaigns designed to convince the society that there is
neither peace nor joy, neither salvation nor paradise, except through heightened
consumption.”(Berry, 1988, 116). So successful is this campaign that humans appear
willing to exhaust the Earth’s resources in order to satisfy their desires.