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Margaret Hall

Ms. McDermott

English I Honors Period 8

4 April 2018

Human Impact: Why What We Do Matters

From the time humans evolved to exist roughly 200,000 years ago on planet Earth, they

have been evolving to become the most intelligent life this planet has ever witnessed. Humans

slowly began to rise above the intellectual abilities of other species, creating strategies to make

life longer and of higher quality than ever thought possible. A world of more than seven billion

people manages to function by manipulating the environment to fit their needs, and as humans

have continued to evolve, the cultural landscape of the world has too, as small villages have

grown into massive cities and centers for trade and business with the intent of making human life

greater. But where did these cities come from? Where did the boats, airplanes, and trains come

from that that connect each metropolis? What allows people across the world to drive in cars,

and live everyday using technology that didn’t exists just a few decades or centuries ago? What

makes humans lives in 2018 the way they are? And why has society made such great

advancement in the past two centuries? One answer is the industrial revolution, which brought

about the beginning of the steel industry, the textile mill, steam engine, combustion engine, and

mass production of all sorts of products, and helped to improve transportation, communication,

and banking, all of which are slowly diffusing around the planets from developed to developing

regions. The industrial revolution is the single most important time in history that has connected

all parts of the world. But, the industrial revolution has had a major flaw that has the possibility
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to create more problems than the human race may be able to solve, plants of all different kinds,

whether it be an energy or manufacturing plant, and most types of transportation, cars, planes,

boats and more, emit greenhouse gases that stay in the earth’s atmosphere and will cause global

warming, which slowly heats up the earth. Another revolution, the petrochemical revolution,

helped to mass produce plastic, and plastics that have already been used and cannot be recycled

are the lead material of most of the litter worldwide, which is invading and polluting the

ecosystem. The increase in littering and greenhouse gases in the environment is leading humans

to ask the question, what will be the long term effects of harm to the environment, such as

climate change and littering, for Earth and its inhabitants?

It is common knowledge that emitting greenhouse gases and producing plastics are not

sustainable to the environment. As supported by the ​UXL Encyclopedia for Science,​ as more

greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone are emitted into the

atmosphere, they stay in the Earth’s ozone layer and trap heat radiated from the surface inside

the ozone layer, instead of letting the heat out. Before humans began artificially emitting gases

into the atmosphere, there was a healthy amount of greenhouse gases in the the atmosphere, but

after the industrial revolution greenhouse gas emissions have increased steadily. As combustion

has occurred more and and more frequently since the beginning of the industrial revolution, for

example in a car engine or a power plant that burns coal, greenhouse gas concentrations have

increased greatly. According to the article “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Pollution,” from ​Gale

Encyclopedia of Science​, since 1750 nitrous oxide concentration has increased by 20%, carbon

dioxide by 40%, and methane by 150%, all due to human activity. In addition, concentration of

greenhouse gases is the highest it has been in 800,000 years, and the rate of increase of
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atmospheric concentrations is the highest it has been in 22,000 years. A consequence of global

warming is rising sea levels due to melting ice, according to the article, “The Greenhouse

Effect,” from ​Gale Encyclopedia of Science, ​sea levels have risen between 6.7 and 8.3 inches

around the world since 1901, this will continue to accelerate in the next century, and there will

be an eventual sea level rise of at least 9.8 feet. Another hazardous product of human

development, plastic, is developed using ethylene, a petrochemical manufactured by natural gas

or crude oil. Plastic is unsustainable for the environment, as it is produced rapidly but takes

years to decompose. According to plastic-pollution.org and author Claire Le Guern, every year 8

million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean, and an estimated 100,000 marine animals are

killed annually, along with millions of birds and fishes. According to the World Wildlife

Foundation, at least 10,000 species go extinct every year, mostly because of harmful human

environment interaction. Altogether, humans are emitting harmful gases, and producing harmful

plastics, this, though, is not the entire extent of human impact on the environment. Humans are

also polluting water supplies, disrupting nutrient cycles, and cutting down forests, these are only

some of the many examples of how humans are negatively impacting the environment, along

with gases and plastics.

Why does how humans interact with the environment matter? Humans are continuing to

artificially interact with the environment in order to better their human lives, but they continue to

neglect how their actions are going to harm the earth and all of its inhabitants in the upcoming

decades and centuries. If humans continue to treat the earth as poorly as they are now, the whole

balance of the ecosystem could be set off balance. As sea levels rise, up to 9.8 feet in future

centuries, the more than 4 million people that live within 120 miles of the coast will lose their
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homes, and sources of clean food and water. In addition, animals continue to struggle with the

rising temperatures, and an estimated 100,000 species will go extinct, which will throw off

ecosystems and disrupt balances in nature, causing even more extinction. Still more alarming, as

agriculture continues to grow as worldwide population grows, soil will continue to be depleted of

nutrients and water sources intoxicated with pesticides and insecticides, which could cause

health threats for humans and wildlife because of the large amount of chemicals. Furthermore,

plastic masses on land and in the ocean will continue to grow if plastic production continues, and

ocean life will continue to die. Plastics and landfills continue to fill larger and larger portions of

earth’s surface, which is taking away ecosystem and killing more animals. On top of all this,

humans are on track to continue burning fossil fuels at higher rates, and as humans also continue

to cut down forests, concentrations of greenhouse gases will increase faster, and temperatures

will rise quicker, speeding up the effects of harm to the environment. Altogether, the human

race is spiralling into a world of unsustainable living, and if humans continue to live like in such

a selfish matter, then the long term effects could not only be fatal for animals and plants, but

could be fatal for humans, as we will eventually be destroying our own homes and food supplies,

and setting ourselves up for misfortune.


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Works Cited

"Greenhouse Effect." ​UXL Encyclopedia of Science​, edited by Amy Hackney Blackwell and

Elizabeth Manar, 3rd ed., UXL, 2015. ​Student Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CV2644300506/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&xid=4d

5ee7d9.

Freedman, Bill, et al. "Global warming." ​The Gale Encyclopedia of Science​, edited by K. Lee

Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. ​Student Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CV2644031018/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&xid=f7

de2fa9.

History.com Staff. “Industrial Revolution.” ​History.com​, A&E Television Networks, 2009,

www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution​.

"A history of plastic." ​New Internationalist​, Sept. 2008, p. 8+. ​Student Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A185654951/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&xid=8241

6c74.

“How Many Species Are We Losing?” ​WWF​,

wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/.

Hoyle, Brian D., and K. Lee Lerner. "Enhanced greenhouse effect." ​The Gale Encyclopedia of

Science​, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. ​Student

Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EDHFWD491342613/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&x

id=409bc3

Kagan, Jerome.; Gall Susan B. ​Gale Encyclopedia​. Gale, 1998.


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“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” ​EPA​, Environmental Protection Agency, 14 Apr. 2017,

www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions​.

"Microplastics." ​The Gale Encyclopedia of Science​, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda

Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. ​Student Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/JIBCIC122267752/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&xid

=c2b4614c​.

"Pollution." ​Gale Student Resources in Context​, Gale, 2017. ​Student Resources In Context​,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/KZTTOJ355214924/SUIC?u=la99595&sid=SUIC&xi

d=86a0f698

“When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide.” ​Plastic Pollution​, plastic-pollution.org/.

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