Human Impact on the Environment

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Human Impact on the Environment
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Types of Resources

• Renewable replaced by natural processes Ex
  plants/crops, water

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Types of Resources

• Nonrenewable only available in limited amounts
  Ex Metals, minerals, topsoil, fossil fuels

Fossil fuels
Coal
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Types of Pollution

• Pollution contamination of soil, water, air
• Industrialization- a major source of pollution.

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Types of Pollution

• Air Pollution
• Primary cause is burning of fossil fuels for
  electricity
• Other contributors- cars, heating homes, planes
• Particulates-solid particles of soot
• Smog-smoke, gases, fog

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Air Pollution

• Acid rain-
• Sulfur oxides and water mix to form sulfuric acid
  that falls to earth and lowers pH of
  streams/lakes, leaches nutrients from the soil
• pH lt 5.6 is considered acidic

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Air Pollution

• Greenhouse effect- Increased Carbon Dioxide from
  increased burning of fossil fuel

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Air Pollution

• Increased Carbon dioxide gases trapped in the
  atmosphere leads to a rise in temperature in the
  atmosphere called global warming.
• How to reduce carbon dioxide output-
• burn less fossil fuels
• plant trees to absorb excess carbon dioxide

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Air Pollution

• Ozone layer- prevents lethal doses of UV
  radiation from reaching earth
• Thinning of ozone caused by release of CFCs
  (chlorofluorocarbons) into the atmosphere.

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Types of Pollution

• Water Pollution
• Contaminants from sewers, industry, homes, farms

Pollutants trickle down into ground water More
efforts being made to correct these problems
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Water Pollution

• Types
• Point source pollution- from a single source and
  easily identifiable
• Example- factories

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Water Pollution

• Non-point source pollution- from many sources
  and not easily identifiable
• Example- homes, lawns, highways, pesticides,
  fertilizers

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Three Rs of conservation
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Plant and animal life

• Biodiversity- the variety of life in an area
• Most diverse areas of the world are tropical
  rainforests

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• Biodiversity is being lost due to human actions
  like deforestation, overhunting, overfishing,
  introducing a species

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How do we negatively impact biodiversity?

• Biodiversity is being lost due to human actions
  like
• Deforestation clearing of trees for open land
  space? loss of animal habitat and niches
• Overhunting/overfishing? interrupt predator prey
  relationships by influencing population dynamics
• Introduced Species when we introduce a new
  species that does not have a natural predator?
  overpopulation of that new species occurs. May
  take over other organisms niche, habitat, food
  resource

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Importance of biodiversity

• Many relationships are yet to be discovered
• Loss of species may have consequences for others
  living things (ex- food chains and food webs are
  disrupted)

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Plant and Animal life

• Biomagnification as pollutants move up a food
  chain, their concentration increases

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Results of Biomagnification

• As the pollutant or toxin is taken into an
  organisms body it enter its cells
• As higher order organisms obtain energy from
  lower order organisms, the pollutant/toxin is
  passed on and magnified due to the organisms
  usually increasing in size moving up a food
  chain/web.
• Results in overall magnification of the toxin
  through the chain or web

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The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster

• http//planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/disaster-i
  n-the-gulf-the-oil-spill-environmental-impact.html