Environment Social Issues

Environment and social issues

Dr. Reena Gupta

Associate Professer

Department of Geography

Maharaja Bijli Pasi P. G.

College.

Climate, Health and problems due to pollution:

Over the last 50 years, human activities – particularly the burning of fossil fuels – have released sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to trap additional heat in the lower atmosphere and affect the global climate.

In the last 100 years, the world has warmed by approximately 0.75oC. Each of the last 3 decades has been successively warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.

Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting and precipitation patterns are changing. Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent.

What is the impact

Three considerations challenged that assumption. First, psychosocial researchers recognised the need to differentiate between risk indicators (features that indexed risks but did not themselves provide the risk) and risk mediators (features involved in the actual risk processes leading to mental disorders). Thus, in the 1970s it became apparent that the main risk for antisocial behaviour associated with ‘broken homes’ was a function of family discord and conflict, rather than family break-up as such. Similarly, in the 1980s it was shown that the risks of depressive disorders in adult life were a function of impaired parenting, rather than parental loss. As part of this same issue, it came to be appreciated that distal risks needed to be differentiated from proximal risks. Thus, poverty constituted a distal risk for child mental disorder because it made good parenting more difficult, but the proximal risk mediator involved family malfunction rather than lack of economic

The association between family features and child disorder could not simply be assumed to reflect adverse socialization practices; instead it might derive from the effects of a difficult child on family functioning. Longitudinal data were essential to determine the direction of the causal arrow. Third, twin and adoptee studies showed that, even though risks were due to an environmental feature, the risks might nevertheless be genetically mediated in part (Plomin & Bergeman, 1991) – because, if the environmental feature concerned anything that was influenced by parental behaviour (as would be the case with variables such as family conflict, divorce or parent–child interaction), individual differences in such behaviour were likely to be genetically influenced to some extent.

Adulteration:

An adulterant is a substance found within other substances (e.g., food, beverages, fuels), although not allowed for legal or other reasons. The addition of adulterants is called adulteration. An adulterant is distinct from, for example, permitted food additives. There can be a fine line between adulterant and additive; chicory may be added to coffee to reduce the cost—this is adulteration if not declared, but may be stated on the label. The term "contamination" is usually used for the inclusion of unwanted substances due to accident or negligence rather than intent.