Professional Documents
Culture Documents
11
2 traffic
5 tons of effluents
3 smoke/smog
The World’s
Leading
Environmental
Problems
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
1
Depredation,
defiling of the sea
and dumping of
urban waste
Changes in global
weather patterns, 2
surges in ocean and
land temperatures,
and flooding many
lowland areas
Overpopulation
3
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
4
Exhaustion of the
world's natural non-
renewable resources
Waste disposal
catastrophe and 5
dumping of nuclear
waste
The destruction of
million-year-old 6
ecosystems and the
loss of biodiversity
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
Reduction of
oxygen and the 7
increase in carbon
dioxide in the
atmosphere Depletion of
the ozone layer
8
Deadly acid
rain
9
Water
pollution
10
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
Urban sprawls
11
Pandemics and other
threats to public
12
health
Radical alteration
of food systems
13
Many of these problem are caused by
natural changes
• “HUMAN CONTRIBUTION”
Man-made Pollutants
- can threaten human health and compromise the natural
ecosystem and environment.
Man-made Pollution
- byproduct of human actions such as consumption,
waste disposal, industrial production, transportation and
energy generation.
z
Greenpeace, India
z
Mining
Triggers
Pollution
Mining Triggers Pollution
Shanxi Maanqiao
Copper Mine in Ecological Mining Ltd. in West Virginia
Malanjkhand, India China
- “pumped chemical-
- “have caused pollution laden waste water
- discharges high levels and safety problems” directly into the ground,
of toxic heavy metals where it can leech into
into water streams - “toxic byproducts of the water table and turn
production processes are what had been drinkable
being produced much water into a poisonous
more rapidly than the cocktail of chemicals”
earth can absorb”
A B C
It has been the
poor who are most
severely affected
by these
environmental
problems.
1 2 3 4
z
Source of Greenhouse Gas in
United States as of 2017
Industry – 22%
Five Most Polluting Countries
1
USA - 15% CO2
2 emission
3 India - 7% CO2
emission
4
5 Russia - 5% CO2
emission
Japan - 4% CO2
emission
China, India, and Indonesia are in the
midst of frenzied effort to achieve and
sustain economic growth to catch up with
the West.
z
How is environmental sustainability
ensured while simultaneously addressing
the development needs of poor
countries?
Climate
Change
Climate Change
- A broad range of global phenomena created
predominantly by burning fossil fuels, which add heat-
trapping gases to Earth’s atmosphere
Global Warming
Long-term warming of the planet since the early
20th century due to the increase in fossil fuel emissions
Greenhouse effect
Natural process that warms the Earth’s surface. It is
responsible for recurring heat waves and long droughts,
as well as for heavier rainfall and devastating
hurricanes and typhoons
Combating
Global
Warming
The Kyoto Protocol
• Signed in 1997
z
Social movements - had better
working with some pressure
on their governments to
regulate global warming
Combating Global Warming
1 2 3 4