Smileband Health issues

We as humans have become dependent on luxuries such as cars, houses, and even our cellphones. But what does our love for manufactured metallic and plastic goods do to the environment? Human activity can be directly attributed to the cause of hundreds of extinctions in the last two centuries, verses the millions of years that extinctions naturallyoccur. As we progress through the 21st century, humans have changed the world in unprecedented ways.

Here are 10 ways that humans have impacted the environment, and what that could mean for the future.  Survival used to mean repopulating. That however, is quickly becoming true for the opposite as we reach the maximum carrying capacity that our planet can sustain. Overpopulation has grown into an epidemic since mortality rates have decreased, medicine has improved, and methods of industrial farming were introduced, thus keeping humans alive for much longer and increasing the total population. The effects of overpopulation are quite severe, with one of the most severe being the degradation of the environment. Humans require space, and lots of it whether it is for farmland, or industries which also takes up tons of space. An increased population results in more clear-cutting, resulting in severely damaged ecosystems. Without enough trees to filter the air, CO₂ levels increase which carries the potential to damage every single organism on Earth. Another issue is our dependency on coal and fossil fuels for energy, the larger the population, the more fossil fuels will be used. The use of fossil fuels (such as oil and coal) results in copious amounts of carbon dioxide into the air- threatening the extinction of thousands of species which adds to the effect that forest depletion already has. Humanity continuously requires more space, which devastates ecosystems and increases CO₂ levels, further devastating the delicate environment. The planet can only sustain so much damage until it will begin to damage us. Pollution is everywhere. From the trash thrown out on the freeway, to the millions of metric tons of pollution pumped into the atmosphere every year- it's obvious, pollution is inescapable. Pollution is so bad that to date, 2.4 billion people do not have access to clean water sources. Humanity is continuously polluting indispensable resources like air, water, and soil which requires millions of years to replenish. Air is arguably the most polluted with the US producing 147 million metric tons of air pollution each year alone. In 1950, smog was so bad in LA that the ground level ozone (which is great in the atmosphere, not so much on the ground) surpassed 500 parts per billion volume (ppbv)- well above the National Ambient Air Quality Standard of 75 ppbv. People thought they were under foreign attack as the smog burned their eyes and left an odor of bleach in the air. That is when the devastating effect of aerosols was discovered. While air quality in the US has slightly improved, the quality in developing countries continues to plummet as smog continuously blocks out the sun in a dense shroud of pollution.  Global warming is arguably the greatest cause of impact to the environment. The largest of causes emanating through CO₂ levels from respiration to more detrimental causes like burning fossil fuels and deforestation. At any rate, humans are consistently increasing CO₂ levels globally- every year. The highest level of CO₂ in recorded history before 1950 was about 300 parts per million. However, current measurements of CO₂ levels have exceeded above 400 PPM, abolishing every record dating back 400,000 years. The increase of CO₂ emissions has contributed to the planet's average temperature increasing almost a whole degree. As the Temperature increases, arctic land ice and glaciers melt which causes the ocean levels to rise at a rate of 3.42mm per year, allowing more water to absorb more heat, which melts more ice, creating a positive feedback loop which will cause the oceans to rise 1-4 feet by 2100.