Globalisation and Environmental Problems.

1. Globalisation:
Environmental Problems
Muttahir Ahmed Khan
(Author, Journalist, Analyst, Educationist)

2. The impact of the human population on the environment.
An ecosystem is “a particular location on the Earth distin-
guished by its particular mix of living and nonliving com-
ponents. (Friedman, Relyea, and Courard-Hauri, 2012: 58).
Thus, a coral reef is an ecosystem; a redwood forest is an
ecosystem; and on a much smaller scale, a playground is an
ecosystem. When all of Earth’s ecosystems are put together,
they make up the biosphere. Nature performs many ecosystem
services—valuable, practical functions that help preserve
ecosystems.

3. For example, if the atmosphere is not overburdened, it can maintain a
proper balance between carbon dioxide and oxygen, and provide ozone
for protection against ultraviolet radiation.
Ecosystems do not have an infinite ability to support population growth
or environmental depletion or destruction. In fact, some scientists believe
that humans have already exceeded their carrying capacity—the
maximum population that an ecosystem can support without eventually
being degraded or destroyed. In the 1970s, Paul Ehrlich and John
Holdren developed a formula for determining the effect that human
beings have on their environment: I = P * A * T, or Impact = Population
* Affluence * Technology (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971).

4. TECHNOLOGY AND AFFLUANCE
Thus, the size of the population, its level of affluence, and the technology
available in the society are major contributing factors to environmental
degradation—disruptions to the environment that have negative consequences
for ecosystems. Environmental degradation involves both removing natural
resources from the environment and adding to environmental problems
through pollution.
People who have access to automobiles, airplanes, speedboats,
computers, cell phones, year-round air conditioning and heating, and other
amenities consume resources and generate pollution at a greater rate than
people who do not. The greater a person’s demand on natural resources, the
greater is that person’s ecological footprint, the amount of biologically
productive area needed to sustain a person at his or her level of consumption.

5. ECONOMIC GROWTH-EVVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
During most of the twentieth century, economic growth in the United States
was based on increased output in the manufacturing sector. The environment
is affected at all phases of the manufacturing process, from mining
and transportation to manufacturing and waste disposal. Industrial production
involves extracting raw materials—natural resources—from the
environment, usually through mining. Mining depletes mineral resources and
fossil fuel reserves—coal, oil, and natural gas. Mining also disturbs
ecosystems, particularly surface mining, which strips bare the land,
destroying natural vegetation and wildlife habitats. Other problems typically
follow, including erosion of the land by wind and water and runoff of acids,
silt, and toxic substances into nearby surface water and groundwater, which
leads to the pollution of rivers and streams with toxic compounds that kill
fish and other aquatic life.

6. AIR POLLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Air pollution is caused by the release of chemicals into the air from a variety
of sources. The largest contributors to air pollution are the combustion of
coal, oil, gas, wood, and other fuels for generating electricity, for
transportation, and for heating and cooking, as well as the release of
pollutants from fertilizers and animal wastes. Burning fossil fuels is also a
contributor to the greenhouse effect the process that occurs when carbon
dioxide and other gases are released into the atmosphere, preventing the
sun’s heat from radiating back into space, thereby causing Earth to heat up).
Other air pollutants deplete the upper atmosphere ozone layer—a gaseous
layer thirty miles above Earth’s surface—that shields Earth from ultraviolet
radiation.