Human Impact On Earth's Environment

The human impact in Earth’s environment

And the need for sustainable development

Planet Earth

Mawada Al Salehi 13-0229

6th Jan 2015

Introduction

Humans have increased their standard of living by discovering intelligent ways to develop the natural environment of the Earth, such as growing food, extracting minerals, building structures, transporting materials, and manufacturing goods of all kinds.

As the world is developing, the human activities on Earth are increasing, and this has many side effects on the environment, huge example for that is global warming. As a result sustainable development is required in this situation to maintain the world’s stability. This essay will outline the human impact in the environment and the results

As other nations strive to improve their standards of living, their energy usage per person is increasing. Certainly, global energy consumption is now increasing at 4.3 percent per year, compare to growth is occurring in China (15 percent per year), India (7 percent per year), and other Asian countries with fast developing economies. Global energy consumption is estimated to go beyond 600 quads by 2020.

1.3 Nuclear energy

After World War II, the predictions were fulfilled as countries around the world built nuclear reactors to produce nuclear energy. In the United States, some 110 nuclear reactors now provide about 22 percent of electric energy used. More than 400 nuclear reactors in 25 countries account for about 6 percent of global energy production. The geologic problems of nuclear energy include the assessment of uranium reserves and the underground disposal of nuclear waste.

And many other activities such as, industrial factories, transportations,

It contains within it two key concepts:

• The concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given.

• The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs." Figure 1: Sustainable development relation to other factors

Sustainable development is difficult to define more precisely, but it offers and appealing if somewhat utopian vision: a civilization that maintains a viable habitat for many generations by carefully managing its interactions with the Earth’s system as a