Environmental changes are caused by manmade causes or natural ecological processes. Environmental challenges include various factors such as natural disasters, human interference, and animal interaction. Wildfires, floods, and tornadoes destroy the forest and change the structural part of the ecosystem.
Wildlife can be killed by the natural disaster and the ecosystem can be destroyed by the change in habitat and food availability. Wildfires depend on some factors like temperature, soil moisture, presence of trees, shrubs and potential fuel. Wildfires produce aerosol and many greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon.
The plants that decolonize the burned areas remove carbon from the atmosphere leading to a neutral effect on climate. Burnt plants and brush disintegrate into nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. When it rains, it sweeps high concentrations of nutrients into the ecosystem, dangerous algae may develop that lead to the loss of underwater oxygen and dead zones. Forest fires lead to air contamination from the fire plume, whose decomposition leads to land and water pollution.
Forest fires lead to contamination from water runoff containing toxic products and other environmental discharges from burned materials. Forest fires are sometimes man-made and sometimes may occur due to the negligence of humans. Forest fires occur mainly in the summer and cause a rise in temperature in the burning region. Air and water pollution occur due to forest fires.
Floods affect the environment and ecosystem, in the affected region. They have a direct impact on humans, social life and economy. Floods have both negative and positive consequences and vary in area, depth, time and water speed. Urban and developed areas are the most affected regions due to floods. Water from dams and reservoirs causes man-made floods. It depends on the way we manage the dams and reservoirs.
Sedimentation clogs rivers and reduces the storage capacity of wetlands and dams. Flood water carries a huge quantity of sediments, Flood water carries a vast quality leaving behind sediments after the water recedes. The impact when extreme water quality is reduced affects industrial use and the water supply to the human race. The other effects are mainly soil and bank erosion. It can damage the vegetation and pollutants carried by the flood water and affect the water quality, habitat and flora fauna. Scientists believe that the climate is changing and humans are the only ones who are responsible for it.
The burning of fossil fuel, coal, and oil gas releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Every year this release of carbon dioxide occurs and this leads to a rise in global temperature called global warming. Global warming is just one symptom of the global climate change which is happening throughout the world.
Climate changes cause extreme weather changes all over the world. Scientists can say that a warming planet will lead to more severe droughts in some areas and heavy rainfall in some in the future.
Tornadoes occur due to the warming up of certain areas and rising of the air at the ground level due to warming of the planet and this causes the tornado. Unfortunately for climatologists, tornadoes are hard to predict. Man-made reasons for environmental changes are namely generating power, manufacturing foods, using transportation, producing food, powering buildings, consuming too much and deforestation. Generating heat and electricity, by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas plays the main role in global emissions. Most of the electricity comes from fossil fuel, and a quarter part of it comes from renewable sources.
Manufacturing and industry produce emissions, mostly from fossil fuels to produce energy for making things like cement, iron, steel, electronics, clothes, plastics and other goods. Cutting down forests to make farms and pasture lands for grazing livestock, release carbon dioxide that they have been storing. Gases store carbon dioxide, and destroying forests limits nature's ability to keep emissions out of the atmosphere. Most of the cars, ships, and planes run on fossil fuel. This makes transportation a contributor to greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide gases.
Producing food requires energy to run farms or fishing boats. Use of fertilizer and manure cause emission that cause the degradation of the climate. Cattle produce methane a powerful greenhouse gas. Packaging and distributing food also cause emissions. Global, residential and commercial buildings cause more than half of the electricity. They use coal, oil and natural gas for heating and cooling purposes.
The wastage of food and other resources-how much you consume and how much you throw away leads to emission from the waste from the dumping grounds. The emissions from different sources contribute to the environmental change around us. To curb the environmental degradation we need to focus so that the generation of greenhouse gases has been curbed. The emissions have led to an increase in temperature all over the world and this in the end causes global warming. Global warming has caused the total climate change that has caused natural and man-made hazards all over the planet.
Edited By:Kavya Vengkateshwaran
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