Environment Devastation
The impact of people on their environment
can be devastating. This is where the
respective role of governments can make
decisions that shape environmental
policy and responsibilities. These
governments can be broken up into four
different levels: local, state,
federal and international. Air quality and
biodiversity are two current
issues that can be related to the role of
governments. Global warming is also
another implication that has a devastating
effect on the environment. Current
examples include the rise in sea levels,
polar meltdowns, the melting of ice
sheets and glaciers and human deaths due to
disease from the effects of
global warming. Firstly the environment can be
defined as the natural
features of our surroundings such as plant and animal
life and their
habitats, water, soils and the atmosphere. A local government
named Rockdale
Municipal Council has implemented certain actions to deal with
the quality in
that region. They have recognized that the main source of poor
air quality
originates from air pollution sources such as motor vehicles,
industrial
premises and aircraft emissions. The solutions to these problems
include
improvements to Ryde and Botany Bay cycle way, integration of land use
and
transport planning strategies, production of "Air Quality - the
Facts"
booklet for community, investigation of complaints regarding odours
and dust,
tree planting and preparation of a Local Air Quality Management Plan
in 1999.
Air quality is a major issue in most states within Australia that
affects our
greenhouse, to tackle the implications state governments have
created
policies and responsibilities. For instance Cities for Climate
Protection
(CCP) is a program that enables mainly state governments to take
action on
greenhouse. CCP provides these state governments with a strategic
framework
to diminish greenhouse gas emissions by helping them identify and
recognize
the emissions of their council and community, set a reduction goal
and
develop and utilize an action plan to reach that goal. State actions
include:
capturing the methane from landfill sites and public and non-car
transport into
urban planning. On a federal or national basis Australia has
employed policies
to increase the air quality. For example the Commonwealth
Government will
guarantee that Australia carries its fair-share of the burden
in worldwide
efforts to combat global air pollution through policy
development and
implementation. They have also supported the National
Greenhouse Strategy (NGS)
which began in late 1996. The government will also
support the development of a
national strategy to observe and manage "air
toxics". The air toxics
strategy will monitor, establish the levels of
community exposure to, and manage
emissions of selected air toxics. The
federal government will even consider the
inclusion of air toxics in a future
National Environmental Protection Measure.
Further measures include the
leading of the development of national ambient air
quality standards through
the National Environmental Protection Council and the
assistance of the
establishment of a National Pollutant Inventory which will
require large
companies to publicly report their emission of 90 pollutants.
Local
government Rockdale Municipal Council has introduced responsibilities
and
policies to reduce the loss of biodiversity. This local government has
learned
that the cause involves the introduction of species, pollution of
land and
water, weed invasion and urban encroachment. Their solutions to
these problems
comprise of the planting of over 3,500 plants and shrubs in
Bardwell Valley and
Scotts Reserve, bush regeneration and planting in
Scarborough Reserve,
involvement in Cooks River Foreshores Working Party and
preparation of a flora
and fauna study in 2000. Policies towards the
community include controlling
noxious weeds on your property, planting native
trees indigenous to the area and
applying to the council prior to removing
any trees. The Labor Tasmanian
Government has created a new Environment
Policy on biodiversity that hopes to
preserve native plants and animals. The
policies commit the government to
encourage community involvement in
biological diversity programs, proclaim the
Tasman National Park,
establish a State Biodiversity Committee with community
representation to
arrange a Tasmanian Biodiversity Strategy, support the
development of a State
Policy on the protection of remnant native vegetation,
examine the
possibility of incorporating the Biodiversity Strategy into
legislation and
seeking the co-operation of local government and the community
in including
and enforcing biological diversity guidelines in development
criteria. The
federal government has enabled several policies to deal with
conservation of
Australia's biodiversity. The government will support the
National
Reserve System program to expand Australia's National Parks,
support
off-reserve biodiversity conservation including the planting of trees
and the
protection of vegetation through the Bushcare program and work with
the States
to reduce unsustainable land clearing, develop an "alert list"
of
introduced plants and animals that pose a risk to our environment.
The
government will also maintain a ban on the export of live fauna;
support
research into Australia's floral and fauna assemblages as well as
biodiversity
conservation methods and ratify the Desertification Convention.
An international
conference held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997 discussed
issues on how best to
reduce global warming. Kyoto Protocol negotiations have
reached a legally
binding agreement limiting the amount of gas emissions all
industrialized
countries. The protocol also included provisions for emission
trading between
industrialized countries. The overall nominal effect of the
Kyoto protocol is
for a reduction of 5.2% of emissions by 2010. However the
agreement has many
flaws and could lead to emission rising above 1990 levels.
The protocol
specifies that Japan must reduce emissions by 6%, USA by 7% and
the European
Union by 8%. The chairman of the conference negotiators,
Raul Estrada said that
further discussions were needed to find a way of
implementing a system of
trading in emissions. Trading allows countries that
produce high levels of
greenhouse gases, such as the USA, to buy the right to
retain or even increase
emissions. Global warming refers to an expected rise
in global average
temperature due to the continued emission of greenhouse
gases produced by
industry and agriculture which trap heat in the atmosphere.
Higher temperatures
are expected to be accompanied by changing patterns of
precipitation frequency
and intensity, changes in soil moisture and a rise of
the global sea level. To
assess current examples relating to global warming,
an examination is first
needed on these examples. Sea levels could rise six
feet and up in future
centuries. The entire Amazon rainforest will be lost if
the level of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere increases by more than 50%. But
no matter whatever
action the world takes to stop global warming, sea levels
are set to rise and
wipe out several island nations. The worst news is that
whatever governments do
to cut emissions, sea levels will rise by at least 2
metres over the next few
hundred years, devastating Tuvalu and Kiribati in
the Pacific and the Maldives
in the Indian Ocean. Low-lying farmland and
cities occupied by hundreds of
millions of people will also be engulfed.
Robert Nicholls of Middlesex
University in London stated that "thermal
expansion of the ocean will
continue for many hundreds of years after CO2 is
stabilized, due to the gradual
penetration of heat deeper and deeper into the
ocean. All around the world ice
sheets and glaciers are melting at a rate
quite remarkably since record keeping
began. A worldwide institute, based in
Washington DC says that glaciers and
other features are particularly
sensitive to temperature shifts, and that
"scientists suspect the enhanced
melting is among the first observable
signs of human induced global warming.
Some of the effects of global warming are
as follows: arctic ocean sea ice
shrunk by 6% since 1978, with a 14% loss of
thicker year round ice, Greenland
ice sheet has thinned by more than a metre a
year on its southern and eastern
edges since 1993 and 22% of glacial ice volume
on the Tien Shan mountains has
disappeared in the last 40 years. Worldwatch
declared that the Earth's ice
cover reflects much of the sun's heat back into
space and the loss of much of
it would affect the global, raise sea levels, and
threaten water supplies.
They also stated that the land and water left revealed
by the retaining ice
would themselves retain heat, creating a feedback loop that
would speed up
the warming process. The institute pronounced that the world's
glaciers,
taken as a whole, are now shrinking faster than they are
growing.
Worldwatch also warns of the outcomes of retaining ice on
wildlife. In northern
Canada reports of hunger and weight loss among
polar bears have been associated
with ice cover changes. And in Antarctica,
sea loss, rising air temperatures and
increased condensation are altering the
habitats and the feeding and breeding
patterns of seals and penguins. Cornell
University ecologists believe that
global warming may account for millions of
human deaths from disease. David
Pimentel a professor of ecology at
Cornell stated and assumes that "Most of
the increase in disease is due to
numerous environmental factors, including
infectious microbes, pollution by
chemicals and biological wastes and shortages
of food and nutrients. Global
warming will only make matters worse." Global
warming will produce a
favorable climate for disease producing organisms and
plant pests. Global
climate change will result in a net loss of obtainable food,
for example the
decline in rainfall (due to global warming) causes crop and
plant production
to die out. Infectious disease and environmental factors are to
blame for
more than 75% of all deaths in the world. Environmental disease may
comprise
of organic and chemical pollutants, including smoke from tabacco and
wood
sources. More than three billion people are malnourished.
Malnutrition
increases vulnerability to pollution-related illnesses and
diseases such as
diarrhea. Therefore Pimental concluded, "we're seeing the
first signs that
global climate change can influence the incidences of human
disease". And
that "this change combined with population growth and
environmental
degradation, will probably intensify world malnutrition and
increases in other
diseases as well." Melting is taking on vast and
unprecedented level in the
Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic and in dozens of
mountain and sub-polar glaciers,
and the rate has accelerated immensely in
the past decade. The Earth's ice cover
could have intense changes on the
global climate and rising sea levels could
start regional flooding. Melting
of mountain glaciers could also endanger urban
water supplies and the
habitats of plant and animal species in fragile
environments. Within the next
35 years, the Himalayan glacial area is expected
to shrink by one-fifth, to
just 100, 000 kilometres. A prediction forecasts that
the remaining glaciers
could disappear in 30 years. The melting has been
especially noticeable in
the past three decades, and scientists believe that it
is the result of human
behaviour and the build up of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases that
contribute to global warming. All current examples of
global warming are
significant due to the effects that it has on the environment
and people. For
people, it can cause infectious diseases and pollution-related
illnesses that
in turn effect our standard of living. Some examples can be more
significant
than others. For example diseases amongst people is more so
important than
the rise in sea levels and melting of glaciers since peoples
existence are
endangered.