The Global Nightmare
The nightmare has already begun. For the past decade, climate change has been a key issue for people all over the world. The current condition of Earth is the result of air pollution, water pollution, and overpopulation. Air pollution, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, factory farming, the release of carbon monoxide, and other harmful greenhouse gases. Water pollution, caused by the unregulated disposal of wastes. People who are alive have automatically contributed to over population. We grow unbelievable amounts of food, to feed animals, that we eat.
With modern technology, science and medicine, the birth rate exceeds the death rate. While still writing this article, there were about 104,519,924 births and 43,770,133 deaths this year. However, the world population is constantly changing as each word of this article is being read.
When scientists are asked, how do organisms live if their population has reached the maximum capacity their ecosystem can hold, the answer is, they don’t. Resources will run out and some will starve to death. Space will diminish and some will die because of homelessness.
As the human population increases, ecosystems will be wiped out for new houses to be built, resulting in deforestation. Factories and power plants will produce harmful chemicals, from sulfur dioxide to carbon dioxide or nitric oxide that are released into the atmosphere. These chemicals combine with other chemicals in the atmosphere to form acid rain.
Once the acid rain reaches oceans, the acidity of the oceans will increase, damaging marine life, including tiny plants that live on the surface of the ocean called phytoplanktons. Phytoplanktons release most of the oxygen that we breathe in. Without these plants, this is a bleak future for everyone. As these ecosystems deteriorate, food will dwindle and predators will have to move to other areas for food in order to survive. This will lead to invasive species, leading to more problems like over fishing.
Eventually, seafood will become a relic of the past for the next generation if the water quality around the world continues to decrease. Without small marine life living in the bottom of the marine food chain, the bigger predators die out.
Water is important for all organisms on Earth. Only 2.5 percent of water on Earth is freshwater humans can use. Only one percent of that water is drinkable, due to pollution or garbage dumped into freshwater. This obstacle has already reached certain parts of the world, like Ethiopia, Haiti and India, just to name a few. As of yet, over 600 million people in the world lack access to clean freshwater.
For people who live in places with poor water access, they wake up without clean water to drink, and get sick from drinking the only water that there is to drink, contaminated water. They may also walk for miles to access freshwater, and rarely shower to conserve water. Infants often die due to these conditions.
There will be no “sea to shining sea.” There will be no “purple mountain majesties.” The sea won’t be shining neither will you be able to see the beautiful colors of our majestic mountains.
These challenges have no boundaries, where it stops between the United States and Canada. An increasing number of parts of the world struggle to live a decent life because of the lack of resources in their respective countries. Action needs to be taken, or the coming consequences with be inevitable.
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