how are people doing harm to the environment?

Question

people are damaging the environment

Answer 1

According to the World Health Organization, “In its broadest sense, environmental health comprises those aspects of human health, disease, and injury that are determined or influenced by factors in the environment. This includes the study of both the direct pathological effects of various chemical, physical, and biological agents, as well as the effects on health of the broad physical and social environment, which includes housing, urban development, land-use and transportation, industry, and agriculture.”[1] The term “environment” also may be used to refer to air, water, and soil. This more narrow definition ignores the manmade environment created by a society. Where and how a society chooses to grow and develop affects the quality of life by determining how long people spend traveling to work, shopping, or going to school. Where and how a society builds its houses, schools, parks, and roadways can also limit the ability of some people to move about and lead a normal life.

Because the impact of the environment on human health is so great, protecting the environment has long been a mainstay of public health practice. National, State, and local efforts to ensure clean air and safe supplies of food and water, to manage sewage and municipal wastes, and to control or eliminate vector-borne illnesses have contributed a great deal to improvements in public health in the United States. Unfortunately, in spite of the billions of dollars spent to manage and clean up hazardous waste sites in the Nation each year, little money has been spent evaluating the health risks associated with chronic, low-level exposures to hazardous substances. This imbalance results in an inadequate amount of useful information to evaluate and manage these sites effectively and to evaluate the health status of people who live near the sites.[2] In the past, research in environmental epidemiology and toxicology has often been based on limited information. New knowledge about the interactions between specific genetic variations among individuals and specific environmental factors provides enormous opportunity for further developing modifications in environmental exposures that contribute to disease. Further research is needed to address these and other problems and to improve the science and management of health effects on people exposed to environmental hazards.[3]

Issues
Environmental factors play a central role in human development, health, and disease. Broadly defined, the environment, including infectious agents, is one of three primary factors that affect human health. The other two are genetic factors and personal behavior.

Human exposures to hazardous agents in the air, water, soil, and food and to physical hazards in the environment are major contributors to illness, disability, and death worldwide. Furthermore, deterioration of environmental conditions in many parts of the world slows sustainable development. Poor environmental quality is estimated to be directly responsible for approximately 25 percent of all preventable ill health in the world, with diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections heading the list.[4] Ill health resulting from poor environmental quality varies considerably among countries. Poor environmental quality has its greatest impact on people whose health status already may be at risk.

Because the effect of the environment on human health is so great, protecting the environment has been a mainstay of public health practice since 1878.[5] National, Tribal, State, and local efforts to ensure clean air and safe supplies of food and water, to manage sewage and municipal wastes, and to control or eliminate vector-borne illnesses have contributed significantly to improvements in public health in the United States. However, the public’s awareness of the environment’s role in health is more recent. Publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in the early 1960s, followed by the well-publicized poor health of residents of Love Canal in western New York, a significant toxic waste site, awakened public consciousness to environmental issues. The result of these and other similar events is the so-called environmental movement that has led to the introduction into everyday life of such terms as Superfund sites, water quality, clean air, ozone, urban sprawl, and agricultural runoff.

In 1993 alone, over $109 billion was spent on pollution abatement and control in the United States.[6] However, many hazardous sites still remain. Minimal research has been done to evaluate the health risks associated with chronic low-level exposures to hazardous substances, resulting in an inability to evaluate and manage such sites effectively and to evaluate the health status of residents living near such sites. Further environmental epidemiology and toxicology research is needed to address such problems and to improve the science and public health management of the health effects on people exposed to environmental hazards.

To address the broad range of human health issues affected by the environment, this chapter discusses six topics: outdoor air quality, water quality, toxics and waste, healthy homes and healthy communities, infrastructure and surveillance, and global environmental health issues.

Answer 2

Human is really the only living being on the earth that is certainly accountable for destruction of environment. This is because of his capacity to exploit the natural resources beyond the limits of safety. Just how can humans affect the environment?
Polluting
Non-Veg Diet
Technology
Deforestation
Excess usage of commodities
Wastage of resources: water, power petroleum etc.
These cavities can be troublesome in times during the floods and also cause of earth quakes. Thus we are exploiting the nature and environment beyond the safe limits. Hence we could see wild animals getting into villages and attacking humans.

Answer 3

In the UK we can recycle plastic bags at supermarkets, in fact any kind of "stretchy" plastic. Might appear odd, but producing plastic bags is actually better for the environment as making bags from paper is energy consuming and uses trees. I was in Mauritius and the local store was touting "green" shopping bags, made from hessian, a natural material. Sounds like a good idea? I thought so until I found out the bags were made in China then transported halfway round the world by ship, hardly very green.

Answer 4

Mayday!!!Mayday!!! save Mother Earth!!!!!!!save Mother Earth!!! Global Warming is finishing Her!!!!

Answer 5

well i have seen that many people spit and throw their rubbish on the ground. as it happened to our house at night people who were drunk knocked our bins over the street and the rubbish was all over, they just have to be careful with the environment and it will be nice and tidy ever..

Answer 6

littering and not recycling damage the enviroment and people are to lazy to stop doing both