We Are NOT Being Stewards

Many scientists consider humans as the most invasive species, as humans can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there. Are we being stewards of the world? Take a look at an issue in which human intervention has positively or negatively affected the biodiversity of our ecosystem.

Plants: provide humans and animals with oxygen and food. In addition, trees create paper to write on and pencils to write with.

Animals & Insects: provide food for humans, and also help pollinate.

Humans: eat more plants and animals than needed, pollute oxygen the trees give out, wipe out forests all over, and in plenty of ways, contribute to the extinction of animals.

Does what written above seem fair to you at all? While plants and animals do their duties here on earth, humans are simply destroying useful creations made by them. Our earth is definitely introuble, and it's about time we start taking action before things get even worse.

In my opinion, pollution, which leads to global warming is a very big issue. It's getting hotter each summer, and the sun is becoming stronger and stonger. The greenhouse effect is obviously in our presence, and it's known to many that glaciers are melting causing the polar bears to become another extinct animal. It is time we stop pretending that our world is still "okay" and start acknowleding that if we do not take action now, it will be to late and things will start getting out of hand.

Pollution IS a BIG deal!


Sometimes the harmful things we do to our earth is not intentional, but we should start being more cautions of the decisions we make. At other times, we are TOO lazy. We can easily turn off a computer while it's not in use, but instead, we decide to leave it on. We can unplug our cellphone chargers when we're not charging our phones, but instead we just leave it there. If we can do these painless, uncomplicated jobs, we would be saving our earth and ourselves, one step at a time.

Have you ever walked around your neighbourhood to find papers flying around, and pop cans thrown onto grass? Might I even add, walking around downtown Toronto? Ciagarettes, wrappers, food, pop can's- just lying around? It's unfortunate that many humans throw their trash here and there; as if there's no such thing as a garbage. I find it even worse when people have a garbage for "trash, recycle, and compost" and they just throw everything in "trash." Not much thinking is required for that, we are just too lazy sometimes.

On another note though, littering is just one of the many factors that affect pollution. There are so many cars and factories on our earth, that there are countless amounts of fuels entering our atmostphere. Think of how many cars there are in the world, and how many factories there are. How can one earth stay healthy when there is such a high number of carbon dioxide from billions of cars and factories trying to kill it.

According to environmental groups, Canada's pollution in air, water and land has increased by more than 20% since 1995. Our carelessness is showing, and it's about time we start changing our habits. Not only are we killing the earth, but also other living organisms.

On www.pollutionwatch.org, a chart is shown on the right hand side of "Air Releases of Carcinogens by Province" - In the chart, Ontario is number one, with the highest number of 2,736,369 kg (Air Releases of Toxics of Carcinogens), 38.18%.

Carcinogens are substances that can cause cancer to humans and/or animals. If a substance contributes to cancer or promotes it, but does not really CAUSE cancer, it may also be called and considered a carcinogen. Although there is more than a handful of things that are known to cause cancer, a substance is only a carcinogen if there is important evidence of its carcinogenicity.

The pollution we create has caused global warming. It is obvious we are not stewards of the world, because if we were, we would not be undergoing such a large issue. Global warming cannot be avoided since early signs are already showing; powerful storms, droughts, extremely hot weather, the melting of polar ice caps and so on.

Global Warming

I came across this website that quite interesting.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/interactive/interactive.html

When you first click this website, you will see a visual of our earth, with a drop down list when you hover your mouse of SIGNS, SOURCES and CARBON CYCLE. If you click on SIGNS, and pick a sign of global warming (example: Sea Level Rising), it will locate you to a place on earth and point out specific areas where it shows the sea level rising. This website not only showed me that there are clear signs of global warming, but it also brought to my attention, that there really is a problem here that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

What is global warming exactly? : Global warming is the rise in surface temperatures everywhere. Not only is there a rise in surface temperatures, but also in the upper layers of the atmosphere where temperature is changing, and also in deep oceans, where it is becoming warmer. More visual and obvious signs of global warming are in the fast melting glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Himalaya, the Anterctic Peninsula, high tropical mountains. The thinning and vanishment of sea icein the Arctic Ocean during summer. And also, the rise of sea level and increase in terrible weather.

Global warming is caused by something called the "greenhouse effect." Earth represents the greenhouse, and the heat from the sun stays trapped in the atmosphere, instead of it being released -just like how the sunlight stays trapped in the glass of a greenhouse. Gases and fuels act as layers that reflect, allowing the heat inside of the atmosphere to stay stuck inside, instead of being freed. By having this happen, the temperature of Earths surface rises. That's why sometimes, it's just TOO hot outside.

The top three "greenhouse gases" are:

Carbon dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide.

*They are very good at absorbing sunlight and changing that energy into heat.

The greenhouse effect is not necessarily a bad thing because it is important for life on Earth. If the greenhouse effect did not exsist, it would be very hot during the day, and very cold during the night. But although the greenhouse effect isn't a bad thing, it becomes one when it gets too strong and warms things too much. Scientists say that over the last 150 years, or so as industrialization has occured the greenhouse effect has become worse. Carbon dioxide has increased almost 30%, methane has doubled, or possibly even more, and the nitrous oxide concentration is up approximatley 15%. Having all these gasses trapped causes the greenhouse effect to be more serious, while at the same time, makes Earth's surface and deep oceans warmer.

Save the Polar Bears!

Due to global warming, polar bears are at risk because they are threatened by the loss of their sea habitat. Global warming is melting the the polar ice caps, taking away the pieces of ice in which the polar bears settle and hunt their prey on. Since this is happening polar bears are forced to spend their summers fasting. If the Arctic ice caps continue to melt, the polar bears will not be able to eat, therefore making them too thin to reproduce. Leading them to become extinct. Not only will it be difficult for them to reproduce, but it will also be difficult for them to settle on a piece of ice if everything is melting. Polar bears are forced to swim long distances to find a new piece of ice, and because there's only a certain amount of a time a polar bear can swim for, they will end up getting tired, and drown. The Arctic temperature is increasing at almost twice the rate as the rest of the world, causing the whole Arctic ecosystem to be in a dilemma.

Our Earth is suffering, and it's about time we start accepting that fact. We must learn to acknowledge that every action has a consequence. After polluting and littering for so long, global warming has become a consequence that humans, animals, and plants must all face- It is an important issue that should have been acknowledged sooner than later. Forthe most part, many of us are definitely not being stewards of the world, and it's about time we change that. Even doing the simpliest of duties will be one step closer in making our Earth healthy once again. We must all learn to be less selfish and greedy and realize that many other living organisms also live on this Earth with us. Think of an Earth with nothing but humans. Who will produce the oxygen, who will provide us with food. Taking things for granted is easy, but we must learn to be considerate of our surroundings. Think of how it would be if there were no polar bears. Soon enough, other species alongside will begin disappearing and humans will not know what to do. We humans make an impact on the world greatly, but it's about time our impact starts being a positive one instead of a negative. For several years we've been damaging our Earth. We've had more than enough time to figure out our mistakes. It's about time we make a postive change!

WORK CITED:

http://www.pollutionwatch.org/
http://www.zerowaste.ca/articles/column180.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-carcinogen.htm
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/interactive/interactive.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/primer/primer.html
http://www.nwf.org/polarbearsandglobalwarming/
http://www.naturecanada.ca/climate_change_polar.asp