what is the importance of environmental awareness and concern?

Answer 1

The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.

The report says the way society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.

This will compromise efforts to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over four years.


This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red
Jonathan Lash, World Resources Institute
It reports that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time.

The way society has sourced its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment concludes.

And the current state of affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.


"Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem 'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report states.

"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute.

"If you drive the economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and prosperity."

Way forward

The MA is slightly different to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.


There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer
Prof Sir John Lawton
The study finds the requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an unsustainable rush for these natural resources.

Although humanity has made considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk global prosperity in the future.

"When we look at the drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of the MA.


More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers - first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.

The MA authors say the pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.

The report says only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the Northern Hemisphere).

Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands.

Global value

The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has driven efforts to slow global warming.


MA - ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years
Changes have brought gains but at high ecosystem cost
Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals
Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy
"The MA is a very powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's ecosystems are now on.

"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.

The report is not all doom and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to use them to raise living standards.

But it requires, says the MA, changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems.

Some of the solutions go to old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as farmers chase high yields.

Newer solutions centre on putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be "free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.


PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
60% of world ecosystem services have been degraded
Of 24 evaluated ecosystems, 15 are being damaged
About 20% of corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded
Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and coastal dead zones
Species extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate
In future, these areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in Europe's newly established carbon emissions market.

Technology's role, the MA says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.

But the pace of change needs to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment panel, added: "The range of current responses are not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation that is at hand.

"In our scenarios, we see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental in nature - we can realise some of the desired outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and human well-being."

The MA has cost some $20m to put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and others.

Answer 2

You seem to be trying to hang on the fence, and you can do that because you don't have any idea of the numbers. Yes, Nature makes greenhouse gases. But greenhouse gases have increased as much as 300% since the advent of Man. And it isn't just Man, but his food sources, his method of agriculture, the means He uses to obtain drinking water for his teeming masses, and the things he does to the Earth's surface to move His multi-ton personal jewelry around. Yes, the Earth will die in 5 billion years. Just as we will die in so many decades, and the Universe in so many hundreds of billions of years. But do *our* lives not matter? Is there no chance we will populate the solar system, or figure out how to move to another Universe, if we are willing to take responsibility for what we do? It is the journey that is important... There is no "yang" or "downside" to the argument. We are cooking our own goose. Nature is just doing what She must do.

Answer 3

wow! Sinfully All's response has to be the best answer! While I can't reply with anything as extraordinary as that, I have my own opinions on the importance of environmental awareness.

If we continue to pay for the convenience of having all our trash hauled away and buried in a landfill, the landfills will fill to overcapacity and begin to leach toxic poisons into our air and water. Without fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, we will DIE;

If we continue to allow oil companies to build pipelines across caribou's migration paths, and allow oil companies to build pipelines in our oceans, their constructions will interfere with the natural habitats and mating habits of wildlife and sealife. That means a few minute Eskimo tribes in the most frozen parts of Alaska and northern Canada may not survive (but that's no big deal to us; afterall, it's more important we have OIL for our $60,000 SUVs). If oil drilling interferes with life in the oceans, species of dolphin, tuna, whales and other seagoing creatures may be wiped out. That means no more tuna casseroles, no more dover sole, and no more shrimp cocktails. If enough of the sea's creatures die, we may also DIE;

If we continue to remain unaware of the damage being caused by global warming, polar ice caps will melt and cause massive flooding, horrendous hurricanes and other natural disasters. Cities on both coasts of both major oceans will be obliterated and we will DIE;

If we continue to ignore the need to REcylce, REuse, and REturn such items as cardboard, paper, plastic, sytrofoam, aluminum cans, glass, steel, newsprint, tin cans, asphalt, and virtually all other "disposables" we now throw in landfills, the Earth will run out of natural resources and we will DIE;

If we continue to concrete over rich farmland so that new, glitzy shopping malls can be erected and handsome housing additions can be built, farmers will have no place on which to grow crops. While most contemporary people believe food comes from a supermarket, they're wrong: food comes from the Earth! And if there's no place to grow corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, and all the other crops, there will be no need for supermarkets because there will be no food. And if there is no food, we won't eat. And if we don't eat, we will DIE;

If we continue to pollute our streams, rivers and ocean with our own human garbage and industrial waste, eventually those waterways will choke on all our squalor and we will not be able to retrieve fresh drinking water. Without water, we will DIE;

If we continue to ignore the environmental axioms that protect and preserve the delicate ecological balance between human beings, plants, and all other animals, we will DIE.

Now, granted - all that might not happen for decades or even centuries. But, our great-great-grandchildren will eventually have to deal with the way we squandered all of Earth's resources. And if it proves to be too much for human technologies to overcome, the human race will DIE. -RKO-

Answer 4

Before you accept any other answers, I would highly recommend reading about the following:
Love Canal
Chernobyl
Three Mile Island

Just for starters...

Answer 5

It is being proven by the most powerful governments in the world that both seem to have no effect in the environment. It is still getting worse every day.

Answer 6

Simply because our children will deal and live with it in the future.

Answer 7

so that we don't kill ourselves along with our planet.

Answer 8

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
in the 60s lots of hippies and school kids shouted about the environment and ,the political leaders of today were kids in those days .and it shows by the strict environmentally protective laws that exist in Europe .
this kind of revolution is needed again today .

HEALTH RELATED ISSUES to contamination.
these are some health issues that are related to ecological problems

with contaminated water a lot of deseases come in to play.
such as eye infections,skin deseases and all kinds of intestinal complaints.

In the town where i am 9 kinds of parasites were diagnosed among the children ,all related to bad water,

Global warming has also had its casualties.
in recent times thousands of people have died because of exessive heat,usually old people.in India ,Mexico and France

and because of desertification and deforestation many people have died in the winter because of extreme cold ,in Mexico,the desert conditions causing very cold nights

deforestation has also caused Mud slides and floodings ,because the retaining forests were gone,with thousands of casualties.

millions of people have been affected by the extensive use of Agro chemicals on the food itself and again because of deforestation causing the rains to wash the soils impregnated with agro chemicals in to the rivers ,from where water was drawn for consumption and because of water shortages people were forced to drink unsafe water.
MEGA THREATS
these are some Mega threats that endanger the planet including salination, and some solutions

over population,erosian(land loss),over pumping of carbon aquifiers(deep wells)
desertification(landloss),risi... seas(land loss) deforrestation.excess carbon emissions,mass extinction of species and global warming.

DEFORRESTATION if it continues ,is that we could end up looking like Mars.Without an atmosphere ,without water,without air,with out life

the forrests make a lot of the water that we can drink or use for plant growth(sweet water)also a lot comes from the ice caps ,which are now going or gone.
some is condensed from the sea but that reaches only the coastel aereas .
the bulk ,comes from the forests ,and the rivers come from the rainfall which comes from the trees ,
the trees with precipitation,feed the rivers when it is not raining, keeping them running all year round.
the trees also absorb the heat in the day and heat up the place in the night ,so they keep the temperature comfortable to live in.

in the dessert the nights are freezing cold and during the days you burn up

CARBON MONOXIDE
trees absorb carbon emisions ,which is poison to us and they leave oxygen for us to to breathe.

deforestation must be stopped before desertification goes out of control and consumes the planet.

DESERTIFICATION
the sahara is growing by 7 kilometres every day.
two major desserts in northern china are growing together making one giant dessert and,causing dust storms so making thousands of people refugeese

the trees evaporate a mist which ,which protects us from the strong rays of the sun .

the planet is drying out at an alarming rate.

in the days of the dinasaurs this planet was under an aquiferus manta ,a mist that covered the entire earth ,and there were no desserts .
Count how many there are today,and all of them are as a result of mans actions.
the sahara used to be forrests
arabia ,irak ,iran used to be fertile lands in biblical times

Ghengas Kahn burned all the forrests here and filled the wells with water and so turning vast lands into dessert.
today,Bad agricultural practises is turning vast teritories into desserts ,because of over grazing and the exessive pumping of carbon aquifiers ,the surface aquifiers already having been depleted.
And the use of fertilisers and heavy machinery that compacts the ground which raises the salt in the soil.
Ghengas kahn would have been envious of Modern agriculture

And because agricultural lands are lost, farmers are forced to cultivate highly erodable lands, to keep up with the growing demand for food.an extra 70 million people each year and this is increasing
the world population has doubled in the last 50 years the fasted increase ever since the first homo sapian.

EROSION
soil erosion is almost always as a result of human intervention.
the trees are cut down and these trees existed to provide a cover against the rays of the sun which now dries out the soil ,and the wind can than easily blow away the dust that is formed ,------this is wind erosian

because the trees are no longer there, whose roots bound the soil together ,and because their canapies of foilidge no longer exist the rain now has easy acces to the unprotected ,now dry surface and the rain waters wash away the top soils ,------this is water erosian

farmers plow large plots of land to plant maize or wheat or what ever and as happened in the 20s in the USA,they plowed in straight lines.when the winds came they blew alonfg the straight lines and picking up speed removed millions of tons of top soil(wind erosian) turning vast teritories into dessert deprived of arable soil

today the farmers plow in circles and curves to prevent this building up of speed by the wind,

but still vast sections of land are exposed to the sun which kills the micro biotic life ,that builds the black and rich top soil and tons of water is evaporated by the sun.,
MUD SLIDES
in Mexico in the mountains the increasing
populations of indigenous peoples are cutting down trees to plant corn ,this land is productive for a few years before it becomes poor and useless for farming.
the roots of the trees that have been cut down rot and tunnels are created with their diaaperance ,with heavy rains these tunnels fill up with water and the soil lifts and moves down wards .

mudslides are caused and large parts of the mountains are exposed to the rock.

the mud destroys the lands beneath and the exposed areas NEVER recover leaving the area with out vegetation forever

to recover eroded soil is a lengthy process

WATERSHORTAGE,OVERPOPULATION
each year 70 million more people are consuming water but this is ,but a small part of what agriculture uses.

so our consumption of water is ever increasing and our drinkable water supply is shrinking because of polution ,and the production of potable water is less all the time because of deforestation.

the water we got must be treated or purified before it is acceptable for human consumption.

in Portugal and soutern Spain ,as in many places, wine is cheaper than water.Which would explain the many drunk people there

we are living in a bubble economy and when the bubble bursts
food prices will sky rocket,and so will the price of water.

the wars of the future will be for water

GLOBAL WARMING

because of the green house effect and the desertification this planet is heating up
Each degree rise in temperature signifies 10% crop loss

RISING SEAS
The northpole is melting ,and we will know it without ice in our life times.
this does not affect the sea level because it is ice that is already in the water.

Green land,the melting glaziers and the south pole are another matter.
this is ice above the sea ,on the land, and melted water will return to the sea .and so duely affect sea levels
so far only a few millions acres in total globaly ,but this will speed up with the increasing global warming.

in Antartica arms of ice that even had names because the were so permanent have broken of into the sea.

also we are witness to the first mass extinction of animals since the days of the dinosaurs ,
species being lost by the hour ,to put it conservatively

SOLUTIONS
Global efforts to cut down on carbon emisions,reforestation to capture carbon,sustainable farming practises and ecomomic systems of irrigation,education on family planning to counter overpopulation,water harvesting to fill up subteranian water supplies,environmentally friendly energy systems,efficient public trans port to discourage the use of the internal conbustion engine,global distribution of food supplies.encouraging people(to return to the land) to be autosufficient (with the internet business is not any more confined to the cities),urban planning to include vegetation,stop building more high ways,

agricultural devellopment programs for 3rd world countries.

if every one in the world, who could,would plant a garden ,this would take the stress of the farmers,add to the bio-mass and so the humidity and put a lot more food into circulation.

so what you can do is plant a tree,clean up rubbish,leave bins for people to put their rubbish in,leave notice boards explaining that you cleaned and ask people to co-operate,

and dont put your own organic rubbish together with the rest,seperate and classify your rubbish,70 %of contamination is because of organic material and this is the easiest to take care of ,you make a small compost heap in a shady place in the garden and all the organic waste of the house can go here ,at times cover it with leaves or sand.
the rich compost which results you put back on your plants.
this does not smell or create bugs,the decomposition kill about every thing.

if you can have a couple of bantum chickens which eat 70%of garden pests and they do not rake the ground and kill the plants as ordinairy chickens do.

plan B -a planet under stress-by Lester E Brown.
it is in an Adobe print out as well on the net.

you must get this little book if you want to be well informed about global environmental issues
Lester E Brown is the director and founder of the global institute of Environment in the United states .he has compiled a report based on all the satalite information available from NASA,and all the information that has come from Universities and American embassies WORLD WIDE ,

the importance of being aware is that you can help by being informed and passing the information on to others and motivate them, about behaving in a benificial way as far as the Earth is concerned,