Environment

- everything that affects a living organism

The environment includes all conditions that surround living organisms:

• Climate
• Air and water quality
• Soil and landforms
• Presence of other living organisms

Science
- study of natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation

Environmental Science
- the interdisciplinary study of humanity’s relationship with other organisms and the
nonliving physical environment.

- an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical, biological, information

sciences and engineering to the study of the environment, and the solution of
environmental problems.

- the field of science that studies the interactions of the physical, chemical, and biological
components of the environment and the relationships and effects of these components
with the organisms in the environment.

- the study of the effects of natural and unnatural processes, and of interactions of the
physical components of the planet on the environment.

- the study of the interaction of humans with the natural environment.

Major Environmental Problems That the World Face Today:

1. Pollution
2. Global Warming
3. Overpopulation
4. Urban Sprawl
5. Natural Resource Depletion
6. Waste Disposal
7. Deforestation
8. Loss of Biodiversity
9. Acid Rain
10. Genetic Engineering
Pollution
• It is the introduction of contaminants that causes natural environment to change

Kinds of Pollution:

1. Air Pollution

Air pollution is the contamination of air by smoke and harmful gases, mainly
oxides of carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen.

2. Water Pollution

Water pollution is the contamination of any body of water (lakes, groundwater,

oceans, etc)

3. Soil/Land Pollution

Land pollution is the degradation of the Earth's surface caused by a misuse of

resources and improper disposal of waste.

4. Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is any loud sounds that are either harmful or annoying to humans
and animals.

5. Radioactive Pollution

Radioactive pollution results in the pollution of the air and land with radioactive
poisoning. It can happen from leakages or accidents at nuclear power plants, as well as
from improper disposal of nuclear waste. This pollution results in birth defects, cancer,
deteriorating of health and even death.

6. Light Pollution

Light pollution is the brightening of the night sky inhibiting the visibility of stars
and planets using improper lighting of communities.

7. Thermal Pollution

Thermal pollution is the increase of temperature caused by human activity.

8. Visual Pollution

Visual pollution is what you would call anything unattractive or damaging to the
nearby landscape.
Global Warming

• It is the result of human practices like emission of greenhouse gases.

• leads to rising to temperatures of the oceans and the earth’ surface causing melting of
polar ice caps, rise in sea levels and unnatural patterns of precipitation such as flash
floods, excessive snow or desertification.

Main Causes of Global Warming:

• Humanity’s increased use of fossil fuels – such as coal, oil, and gas to generate
electricity, run cars and other forms of transport, and power manufacturing and
industry.

• Deforestation – because living trees absorb and store carbon dioxide.

• Increasingly intensive agriculture which emits greenhouse gases like methane and
nitrous oxide.

Effects of Global Warming:

• Melting glaciers, early snowmelt, and severe droughts will cause more dramatic
water shortages and increase the risk of wildfires

• Rising sea levels

• Forests, farms, and cities will face troublesome new pess, heat waves, heavy
downpours and increased flooding. All those factors will damage or destroy
agriculture and fisheries.

• Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many
plant and animal species to extinction

• Allergies, asthma, and infectious disease outbreaks will become more common
due to increased growth of pollen- producing ragweed, higher levels of air
pollution, and the spread of conditions favorable to pathogens and mosquitoes.

Solutions:
• Power your home with renewable energy
• Reduce water waste
• Don’t waste food
• Save energy
• Rethink planes, trains and automobiles
Overpopulation

• Overpopulation is one of the crucial current environmental problem.

• The population of the planet is reaching unsustainable levels as it faces shortage of

resources like water, fuel and food.

• Population explosion in less developed and developing countries is straining the

already scarce resources.

• Intensive agriculture practiced producing food damages the environment through use
of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and insecticides.

1. China 1,384,688,986
2. India 1,296,834,042
Top 10 Most 3. United States 329,256,465
Populous Countries 4. Indonesia 262,787,403
(as of July 1, 2018): 5. Brazil 208,846,892
6. Pakistan 207,862,518
7. Nigeria 195,300,343
8. Bangladesh 159,453,001
9. Russia 142,122,776
10. Japan 126,168,156

U.S. Census Bureau says, that we got a world population of 7,481,583,746.

The Philippines has a population count of 106,512,074 and is rank number 13 on

the world’s most populous countries.
Urban Sprawl
• refers to migration of population from high density urban areas to low density rural
areas which results in spreading of city over more and more rural land.

Causes of Urban Sprawl

There is no single cause for urban sprawl. It is generally accepted that there are
several contributing factors, all of which play important parts in the continued
urbanization of small communities and green areas.

Factors:
1. Population Growth
- is the increase in the number of individuals in a population. As more
people are born, more land is needed to house them. Couple this with the fact
that death rates are currently below birth rates and you have a clear cause for
urban sprawl.

2. Lower Land Rates

- it makes it easier for developers to purchase and build on land, which is a
minor contributing factor. These rates, coupled with fluctuations in property
prices, can also make it easier for those in urban areas to buy housing outside of
them.

3. Improvements in Infrastructure
- furthermore, improvements in infrastructure have made it easier to move
away from urban areas, while also making it easier to commute into them. This
makes the prospect of living outside of central areas more attractive, which
contributes to the spread of population.

4. Poor Planning
- Poor planning of urban centers can also play a part in some cases as
heavily-populated and poorly-planned urban areas lead to people looking for
quieter places to live.

Effects of Urban Sprawl:

1. Environment
• Land Loss
Land consumption as part of human resource consumption is the
conversion of land with healthy soil and intact habitats into areas for
industrial agriculture, traffic (road building) and especially urban human
settlements.
 • Habitat loss
Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is
rendered unable to support the species present. In this process, the
organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed,
reducing biodiversity.

2. In Health
Sprawl leads to increased driving, and increased driving leads to vehicle
emissions that contribute to air pollution and its attendant negative impacts on
human health.

3. In Safety
A heavy reliance on automobiles increases traffic throughout the city as
well as automobile crashes, pedestrian injuries, and air pollution.

4. Increased Infrastructure/Transportation Costs

Many experts believe that urban sprawl results in higher costs for the
government agencies responsible for building streets, schools, utilities and other
services required to support new residents in sprawling communities.

Solution of Urban Sprawl

A measure called smart growth advocates reducing sprawl by fixing up run-down
urban communities, building new and better communities closer to cities, and preserving
open space before it's developed.
Natural Resources Depletion
• The utilization of a resource quicker than it can be renewed.
• Resource depletion is utilized as a part of the reference to cultivating, angling,
mining, water utilization, and utilization of petroleum derivatives.
• Natural resources incorporate water, fuel, soil, land, and air.

Decreased Resources:
1. Water

Water is important because it is needed for life to exist. Many uses of water
include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities.
Virtually all these human uses require fresh water. Only 2.5% of water on the Earth is
fresh water, and over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps.
Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world, and many more
areas are expected to experience this imbalance soon. It is estimated that 70% of world-
wide water use is for irrigation in agriculture.
Climate change will have significant impacts on water resources around the world
because of the close connections between the climate and hydrologic cycle. Due to the
expanding human population competition for water is growing such that many of the
world’s major aquifers are becoming depleted. Many pollutants threaten water supplies,
but the most widespread, especially in underdeveloped countries, is the discharge of raw
sewage into natural waters.

2. Oil

A hydrocarbon liquid substance that is greasy to the touch and is formed by

natural resources or the breakdown of fats. Oil comes in many forms as diverse as crude
oil and vegetable oil, which serve very different purposes.
As an unrefined natural product, oil consists of more than 17,000 components. It
can be classified as extra heavy oil and bitumen, heavy oil, light oil, and condensate. API
gravity is the unit generally used to classify crude oil. It is used throughout the world for
characterization and as a quality standard for crude oil.
Light oil has to be recovered from heavy oil. Only then can end products such as
diesel, gasoline, and petroleum be produced. Most demand is for the light, low-sulfur oil
grades.
* API stands for American Petroleum Institute.
3. Coal

Coal is one of the world’s major sources of energy. Coal is used to produce nearly
half of all the electrical energy that is generated and used in the United States. Coal is a
very complex and diverse energy resource that can vary greatly, even within the same
deposit. In general, there are four basic varieties of coal, which are the result of geologic
forces having altered plant material in different ways.

4. Natural Gas

Natural gas is made up of a mixture of four naturally occurring gases, all of which
have different molecular structures. This mixture consists primarily of methane, which
makes up 70-90% of natural gas along with ethane, butane and propane. These gases are
a result of compacted heat and pressure from deceased animals buried deep under the
Earth’s surface for millions of years.
Natural gas is extracted from inside the Earth through natural gas drilling and
alongside oil drills. Once extracted, the gas is combined with a liquid called crude oil –
this is how we can convert natural gas into everyday energy.

5. Fish

Fish provides nutrients and micronutrients that are essential to cognitive and
physical development, especially in children, and are an important part of a healthy diet.
The amount of fish available in the oceans is an ever-changing number due to the effects
of both natural causes and human developments. It will be necessary to manage ocean
fisheries in the coming years to make sure the number of fish caught never makes it to
zero.
A lack of fish greatly impacts the economy of communities dependent on the
resource, as can be seen in Japan, eastern Canada, New England, Indonesia and Alaska.
The anchovy fisheries off the coast of western South America have already collapsed and
with numbers dropping violently from 20 million tons to 4 million tons—they may never
fully recover.
Other collapses include the California sardine industry, the Alaskan king crab
industry and the Canadian northern cod industry. In Massachusetts alone, the cod,
haddock and yellowtail flounder industries collapsed, causing an economic disaster for
the area.
Trivia:
1. The oldest known age for a fish was an Australian lungfish. In 2003, it was still alive and
well at 65 years old.

2. Coal generates approximately 40% of the world's electricity.

3. Natural gas is odorless, colorless and flammable. It is non-toxic and lighter than air;
utility companies add the smell of rotten eggs – a product called mercaptan – to make
leaks easier to detect.

4. A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.

5. Petrochemicals (found in oil) helped produce the electronic device you are reading on
right now.
Waste Disposal
• Removing and destroying or storing damaged, used or other unwanted domestic,
agricultural or industrial products and substances.

• The over consumption of resources and creation of plastics are creating a global crisis of
waste disposal. Developed countries are notorious for producing an excessive amount of
waste or garbage and dumping their waste in the oceans and, less developed countries.
Nuclear waste disposal has tremendous health hazards associated with it. Plastic, fast
food, packaging and cheap electronic wastes threaten the well-being of humans. Waste
disposal is one of urgent current environmental problem.

Various Methods of Waste Disposal

• Landfills
- this process of waste disposal focuses attention on burying the waste in the land.

• Combustion
- type disposal method in which municipal solid wastes are burned at high
temperatures to convert them into residue and gaseous products.

• Recovery and Recycling

- the process of taking useful discarded items for a specific next use.

• Composting
- is an easy and natural bio-degradation process that takes organic wastes

• Avoidance/Waste Minimization
-The most easier method of waste management is to reduce creation of waste
materials thereby reducing the amount of waste going to landfills.
Deforestation
• is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-
forest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches,
or urban use.

Causes:
• Subsistence agriculture
• Commercial farming
• Logging
• Fuel wood removals

Environmental Effects
• Atmospheric
Deforestation is a contributor to global warming and is often cited as one
of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect.

• Hydrological
The water cycle is also affected by deforestation. Trees extract
groundwater through their roots and release it into the atmosphere.

• Soil
Due to surface plant litter, forests that are undisturbed have a minimal rate
of erosion. The rate of erosion occurs from deforestation, because it decreases
the amount of litter cover, which provides protection from surface runoff.

• Biodiversity
Deforestation on a human scale results in decline in biodiversity, and on a
natural global scale is known to cause the extinction of many species.

How to Control Deforestation

• Reducing emissions
Burning fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, oil and gasoline raises the
level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide is a major
contributor to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
• Land rights
Transferring rights over land from public domain to its indigenous
inhabitants is argued to be a cost-effective strategy to conserve forests.

• Farming
New methods are being developed to farm more intensively, such as high-
yield hybrid crops, greenhouse, autonomous building gardens, and
hydroponics. These methods are often dependent on chemical inputs to
maintain necessary yields.

• Monitoring deforestation
Deforestation is typically assessed by quantifying the amount of area
deforested, measured now. From an environmental point of view, quantifying
the damage and its possible consequences is a more important task, while
conservation efforts are more focused on forested land protection and
development of land-use alternatives to avoid continued deforestation.

• Forest management
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall
administrative, economic, legal, and social aspects, as well as scientific and
technical aspects, such as forest development, protection, and forest
regulation.

• Reforestation
In places where forests have been lost or degraded, restoration or
reforestation projects may be undertaken to guarantee or accelerate the
recovery of forests.
Biodiversity
• diversity among plants and animal species in an environment
• includes microorganisms, plants, animals, and ecosystem.

Importance of Biodiversity
• Balance of the ecosystem
- recycles and stores, combats pollution, protects water resources, forms and
protects soil

• Provides Biological Resources

- provides medicine, food for humans and animals, wood products, breeding
stock, diversity of genes

The Roles of Biodiversity

• Food
- human use 40,000 species for food, clothing and shelter

• Human Health
- 80% of the world’s medicine comes from nature

• Industry
- biological sources provide many industrial materials such as fiber, oil, dyes,
rubber, timber and paper

• Culture
- biodiversity provides recreational activities such as bird watching and
fishing

Causes of Loss of Biodiversity

• Destruction of Habitat
Habitats can be destroyed by people for settlement, agriculture, mining,
construction, etc. This forces species to adapt to changes or move elsewhere.
Species can also fall into starvation and sooner or later die.

• Hunting
Wild animals are hunted for the commercial use of their hides, Skins,
tusks, fur and meat.
• Exploitation of Selected Species
Exploitation of important plants in the medicine industry has resulted in their
disappearance from many of their natural habitats. Many of these plants are ruthlessly
collected for teaching and laboratory work.

• Habitat Fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation is when large habitats are divided into smaller ones.
This separates species that depends on each other.

• Collection for Research

If species are collected for research, there could be a disturbance in the
ecosystem.

• Introduction of Exotic Species

Species that aren’t a natural inhabitant of the environment that are
intentionally of accidentally introduced are known as exotic species. The forces of
native species to compete for food and space.

• Pollution
Water pollution can damage estuary and coastal ecosystems. Toxic waste
entering water can disturb the food chain. Coral reefs are being threatened by
pollution from industrialization, oil transport, and offshore mining along the coastal
areas.

• Control of Pests and Predators

Predators and pests control measures kills predators and pests, but they also
unintentionally kill non-target species.

• Natural Disasters
Floods, droughts, forest fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. Have a big
impact on plant and animal life. Volcanic eruptions can destroy plants and animal life
in its surrounding areas.

• Distribution Range
The smaller the range of distribution of the species, the higher the threat of
extinction.
 Humans are currently the most dangerous cause of destruction to biodiversity.

Experts estimates that around 30% of all species will be extinct by 2050.

According to the international union for conservation of nature (IUCN), about 1/3 of
all species are threatened with extinction.

It’s also estimated that 25% of all mammals will be extinct within next twenty -years.

An estimated 58% of the world’s coral reefs are at risk from human activities. Only
1/5 of the world’s original forest cover remains untouched.

Ways to help save our biodiversity:

Get Involved
Donate
Spread Awareness
Acid Rain

• is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has
elevated levels of hydrogen ions

• a known environmental problem that can have serious effect on human health, wildlife
and aquatic species

Brief History of Acid Rain

➢ John Evelyn (17th Century) was the first man who notes about the polluted, acidic
city air

➢ In 1853, Robert Angus Smith was the first to show the relationship between acid
rain and atmospheric pollution in England, and the term “Acid rain” coined.

Causes of Acid Rain

• by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react with the water
molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids.
Genetic Engineering
• Also called as Genetic Modification
• Direct manipulation of an organism’s genes using biotechnology
• Used to change the genetic make-up cells

Process of Genetic Engineering

1. Choose what gene they wish to insert into the organism
2. Gene isolation and cloning
3. Inserting DNA into the host genome

Controversy of Genetic Engineering

• Religious Issues
Accusations that scientists are “playing Gods” and have ascribed to the
technology from the beginning

• Ethical Issues
Include the patenting of life

• Control of Food Supply

Manufacturers are the major benefactor for this GM products. 25,000 people
starve each day

Is there a GM Products here in the Philippines?

On Dec 19, 2000 Greenpeace commissioned an independent Hong Kong food-
testing laboratory (Hong Kong DNA Chips Ltd) to test 30 common consumer food items
available in Philippine supermarkets. The laboratory used a standard PCR test (polymerase
chain reaction) to check for the presence of gene sequences from the two most commonly
grown types of genetically engineered crops.

Of the 30 products tested the following eleven tested positive:

• Bonus Vienna Franks
• Rica Protina Hotdogs
• Campo Carne Moby Hotdogs
• Purefoods Beefy hotdogs
• Quality Foods Budget Franks
• Foodmart Enterprises Crab Cake
• Hong Chi Food Yung Ho Soya Drink
• Doritos Smokey Red Barbecue
• Nestlé Nesvita Natural Cereal Drink
 • Isomil Soy Infant Formula
• Knorr Cream of Corn Soup

All 30 products were chosen for testing because they contained either Soya or Corn
ingredients. All products were bought from a supermarket in Metro Manila.

Other products tested on behalf of Greenpeace included those made under the
following brands: Swift, Nissin, Lucky Me, Campbells, Kelloggs, Humpty Dumpty, Jack
and Jill, Granny Goose, Pringles, Rosarita, Milupa and Wyeth.

Harmful Effect of Genetic Engineering in our Environment:

1. Whether they may provoke an allergic reaction
2. Whether the genes could transfer from the food into human cells
3. Whether the genes not approved for human consumption could outcross to other
crops
4. It may lead in increased of toxins and diseases as genes from an allergic plant
can transfer to target plant
5. Can cause serious environmental problems as an engineered gene may prove
toxic to wildlife
6. May lead to deforestation and loss of wildlife habitat