Pollution has an inescapable effect on our daily lives. It adversely affects our health through the food we consume, the water we drink, and the oxygen we breathe. We live in a world of pollution that it is sure to get worse unless people begin caring enough about our environment to save human and animal lives.
Pollution, which has been around for thousands of years, is more than just “trash”; the term refers to the presence of any unwanted substances–pollutants–in the environment, including thermal, light, and radioactive pollutants. According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, pollution increased 5.5% between 2016 & 2018 (Environmental Protection Agency Database). We know that pollution is killing our world, so we must reverse these increasing pollution percentages. Soil pollution, for example, means the food grown there is contaminated. We will probably never know how many animals and people have died due to the effects of pollution.
Air pollution in particular has a huge effect on climate change. The sun is the world’s heat source and provider of warmth, and when that energy from the sun hits or touches the earth’s surface it is turned back into the atmosphere as heat. An increase in greenhouse gas pollution has trapped excess heat that is causing the climate to warm. The United Nations notes that “changes in temperature cause changes in rainfall. This results in more severe and frequent storms. They cause flooding and landslides, destroying homes and communities, and costing billions of dollars.”
Earth’s environment has been littered with all kinds of pollution and most likely will continue to be littered until we take a stand. The world should not be littered with all kinds of garbage, because the world is our home. Just as a person likes to protect their own house, we must make it a priority to protect the world around us.
