The Environment

What is the environment? It is simply the world we live in and everything around us. From the trees and grass to water and animals. The environment is our home, and it is important to look after it!

However, Earth is experiencing many environmental problems because of human activities. Activities such as deforestation, where forests such as the Amazon Rainforest is being destroyed for more land or activities such as factories and vehicles producing emissions that pollute the Earth. Something like dumping plastic into our oceans can have a drastic impact on our environment and aquatic life. 

So, how exactly is the environment being affected? Well, global warming is a key environmental issue. Global warming is the gradual increase of the Earth’s temperature. The global temperature increased by 1°C in the last 100 years and although this does not sound like a lot, it is certainly enough to result in drastic changes. Changes such as glaciers melting, increasing sea levels which has resulted in flooding. In some geographical locations, this change has resulted in forest fires and droughts, which is extremely scary and sad since plant and animal life is being affected! Scientists even believe that up to 50% of Earth’s species will be extinct by the end of this century and many believe that human activity is the main cause!

But what exactly causes global warming? It all stems from pollution, pollution comes from a wide range of things like cars, trucks, planes, factories and so on. They all produce greenhouse gas pollution like carbon dioxide. These greenhouse gases will travel to the atmosphere and form a layer around the Earth like a blanket. This blanket will trap more of the Sun’s radiation rather than letting it out which will heat the Earth altogether, the thicker the blanket, the more heat it will trap which will make the Earth hotter. This is called the greenhouse effect.

So, what can be done against global warming? A great way to tackle pollution is to lower the amount of pollution we produce. This is why a lot of cars now are becoming electric as electric cars do not produce any direct emissions as a traditional car would.

Another great way to tackle pollution is to incorporate more renewable energy sources. For example, did you know that sunlight can be used to generate electricity? Solar panels can convert the energy from sunlight into electricity that we can use. You may have already seen them on top of homes! Renewable energy sources do not produce nearly as many emissions as a non-renewable energy source like coal would which makes it a clean alternative. 

Can you think of other ways to tackle global warming? What other renewable energy sources are there? How could we clean up all the plastic in our oceans? Get in contact and share your ideas with us, we’d love to hear them!