Human Impact on the

Environment
 Ways Humans Adversely Influence Ecosystems
1. Population growth: Too many people using
limited resources
2. Over consumption: Industrialized societies
are using more resources per person from
our planet than people from poor nations.
3. Advancing Technologies: we introduce
technology without knowing how it will
influence the environment
4. Direct Harvesting: a large loss of rainforest
and its biodiversity.
 5. Pollution: pollution has had many adverse
influences on air, water and land.
 6. Atmospheric Changes: Greenhouse gases
due to the burning of fossil fuels and depletion
of our ozone layer.
7. Endangered species: species are
threatened to extinction due to habitat
destruction.
 Invasive Species
 Importing foreign organisms have caused
problems for native organisms (one’s already
living there).
 They are know as an invasive species AKA
exotic species.
 This is a species not native to an area, it was
imported.
 They are bad because they can out compete
the native animals causing them to go extinct.
 Some times they have better tools for that
environment.
 Sometimes they lack
predators and their
populations increase to
high levels. Then they
eat all the food and native
species go extinct.
 They tend to disrupts the
natural food web that has
been there for many
years.
Three major environmental problems
include:
I. Global Warming
II. Acid precipitation (rain)
III. Ozone depletion
 I. Acid Precipitation
 Most acid rain in New York State is caused by sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen dioxide pollution from the burning
of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
 They combine with water vapor in the atmosphere and
fall back to the earth over New York as acid
precipitation.
 Some Problems Associated With Acid
Precipitation
 Streams and lakes becoming more acidic,
killing fish, frogs and other life.
 Damage forests and plants and
deteriorates buildings
 What can be done?
 We can burn low sulfur coal
 We can use alternative energy sources
such as solar panels for electricity and hot
water heaters.
 We can heat our house with geothermal
wells.
 Geothermal well: well drilled deep into the
earth to release heat naturally created.
Geothermal well
Acid precipitation
 II. Global Warming
 Burning fossil fuels and
other pollution increases
the amount of CO2 in the
air
 Fossil fuels include
gasoline, coal and oil.
 This can potentially
increase the earth’s
temperature.
 Carbon Dioxide is also known as a Greenhouse
gas
 the increase in level of carbon dioxide and other
gases is not allowing infrared or solar heat
radiation to escape the planet back into outer
space.
 This is causing our planet to slowly warm.
 Consequences of Global
Warming
 Rising sea levels and coastal
flooding
 Changed rain patterns
resulting in droughts and
crop failures
 Increase in insect diseases
in regions
 Ex. New York State: warmer
winters fail to kill the disease
carrying insects like West
Nile
What can be done?
 Decrease use of fossil
fuels, including
electricity.
 Use alternative forms
of energy such as
solar panels
 Car pool to work, take
public transit.
 III. Ozone Depletion

 Ozone is another form of

oxygen. You breath O2.
 Ozone is O3. you do not
breath this.
 Ozone decreases the
amount of solar radiation
that reaches the earth from
the sun, also known as UV.
Hole in the ozone layer
What causes Ozone depletion

 Use of CFC’s or chlorofluorocarbons

lowers ozone by breaking up O3
 CFC’s are used in some aerosol cans (not
as much any more)
 They are also released from some
refrigerators and air conditioning systems.
 Consequences: skin cancer, cataracts.
 Actions being taken by humans to reduce or
repair damage to the environment include:
 1. Recycling wastes
 2. Conserving available resources
 3. Using cleaner resources (ex: solar over fossil
fuels)
 4.protection of habitats and endangered
species
 5. use of biological controls instead of
pesticides and herbicides
 6. Farming native plants (ex: cocoa in the
rainforest)
 7. Planting trees to replace those cut down.
 8. Rotating crops or planting cover crops to
reduce soil loss.
 9. passing laws to control pollution, land
management, hunting and fishing
What part of the food chain do you
think is most affect by toxins?
Producer
Primary consumer
Secondary consumer
Tertiary consumer

Why?
Biomagnification

 Biomagnification: the increased

concentration of a poison that moves up
the food chain.
 It can start at the plant level.
 Many little fish eat the plants and get the
toxins.
 Then a large mouth bass eats hundreds of
little fish and gets more toxins.