Earth Day 2022: Environment should be given paramount importance in development- Watch Video

22 Apr, 2022 Author: Saumya Jaiswar

Earth Day 2022: Environmental degradation comes about due to erosion and decline of the quality of the natural environment. It is caused directly or indirectly by anthropogenic activities that extract various environmental resources at a faster rate than they are replaced and thus depleting them. On this regard, degradation means damage or reduction in the quality of environmental features, primarily influenced by human activities. Some natural events such as landslides and earthquakes may also degrade the nature of our environments.

The unplanned conversion of lands into urban settings, mining areas, housing development projects, office spaces, shopping malls, industrial sites, parking areas, road networks, and so on leads to environmental pollution and degradation of natural habitats and ecosystems. Mining and oil exploration, for instance, renders land unusable for habitation and causes other forms of environmental degradation by releasing toxic materials into the environment. Improper land use has led to the loss and destruction of millions of acres of natural environment across the globe.

The act of deforestation (cutting down of trees) has impacted the world in terms of depreciating the natural environment and wildlife. It has also impacted humans on the account of changes in environmental support processes such as weather conditions. Some of the reasons for deforestation include farming, construction, settlement, mining, or other economic purposes. For more than one hundred years, the number of trees on the planet has plummeted, resulting in devastating consequences such as biodiversity loss, soil erosion, species extinction, global warming, and interference with the water cycle.

Most of the planet’s natural environments have been destroyed and a large portion is under huge threat due to the toxic substances and chemicals emitted from fossil fuel combustions, industrial wastes, and homemade utilities among other industry processed materials such as plastics. Land, air, and water pollution pose long-term cumulative impacts on the quality of the natural environments in which they occur.