To everyone who may or may not know, our Earth is a very precious place. Soaring around the sun at approximately 67,000 miles per hour, our planet Earth is the only known planet with an atmosphere that contains oxygen, water, and supports life. It's tilted axes and gravitational force around the sun allows us to experience four seasons being spring, summer, winter, and fall. This 4.54 billion year old sphere is always recycling itself and has the ability to turn igneous rocks to sedimentary and then to metamorphic, constantly creating a new surface for us to walk on. In my opinion, our Earth is a pretty amazing place, but unfortunately we don't treat our planet with the respect it rightfully deserves. A lot of the time we are not consciously aware that our actions are killing our only home. Here are a few shocking results from our everyday actions and greedy decisions.
Earth Overshoot Day
Our Earth has the amazing ability to renew an abundance of natural resources, but we use these resources up much quicker than our Earth is able to replace them. Once a year we reach a point where we use up all of our natural resources and begin using resources preserved for future generations. This day is known as Earth Overshoot Day and this year it occurred on August 8th. In less than eight months we overfished, over-harvested, and emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the Earth is able to recover from. Humans use up so many natural resources that it takes approximately 1.6 planets to suffice our needs.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Earth's oceans contain many wonders of the world and there is still so much we have yet to discover about what lies in it's depths. Unfortunately, we use our oceans as our personal trashcan which has created one specific area of waste known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch is a collection of trash that lies in the northern region of the Pacific Ocean. Believe it or not this pool of trash is the size of Texas. Yes, you heard me right, Texas. It is conjoined with two other marine garbage patches, one being near Japan and the other being near Hawaii and California. The trash becomes enclosed in the circular motion of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre and is constantly accumulating. About 70% of this trash will eventually descend to the ocean floor, disrupting the habitat of the marine life that live there.
Deforestation
Many people may already be aware that deforestation is harmful for the environment, but they may not know how it directly affects the Earth. The human population is constantly growing which causes an increasing demand in agriculture. In order to suffice human needs, deforestation is the "go to" option for creating more agricultural area such as farmland. We don't take into consideration that deforestation causes habitat loss for millions of species. It leaves these animals with nowhere to turn since a majority of the species living there can only survive in a forest environment. Deforestation is also a major drive in climate change since foliage are a large component of absorbing greenhouse gases which can slow global warming. In addition, all rain forests in the world will completely vanish within the next one hundred years if we keep up the same rate of deforestation.
