1

Environment Threats

Sustainable Development&

Protecting today for sustainable tomorrow

3 2

FACTS

2050 25% fisheries OV E R E X P LO I T E D

30% species E X T I N C T

1/8 known species

T H R EAT E N E D

content

Environment Threats

A c i d R a i n

D e f o r e s t a t i o n

Ozone Depletion

A i r P o l l u t i o n

Toxic Waste

Sustainable Development

5 4

ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS

When humans burn fossil fuels, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides

are released into the atmosphere. These chemical gases react with water, oxygen, and other substances to form mild solutions of sulfuric and nitric acid. Winds may spread these acidic solutions across the atmosphere and over hundreds of miles. When acid rain reaches Earth, it flows across the surface in runoff water, enters water systems, and sinks into the soil. Acid rain has many ecological effects, but none is greater than its impact on lakes, streams, wetlands, and other aquatic environments. Acid rain makes waters acidic and causes them to absorb the aluminum that makes its way from soil into lakes and streams. This combination makes waters toxic to crayfish, clams, fish, and other aquatic animals.The effects of acid rain, combined with other environmental stressors,

leave trees and plants less able to withstand cold temperatures, insects, and disease. The pollutants may also inhibit trees’ ability to reproduce. Some soils are better able to neutralize acids than others. In areas where the soil’s “buffering capacity” is low, the harmful effects of acid rain are much greater.

What’s happening to our trees?

Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families.The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.Logging operations, which provide

the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl.

Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes.

Deforestation also drives climate change. Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts.

Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming.

Losing Earth’s protective layer.

It is widespread concern that the ozone layer is deteriorating due to the release of pollution containing the chemicals chlorine and bromine. Such deterioration allows large amounts of ultraviolet B rays to reach Earth, which can cause skin cancer and cataracts in humans and harm animals as well.

The ozone layer above the Antarctic has been particularly impacted by pollution since the mid-1980s. This region’s low temperatures speed up the conversion of CFCs to chlorine. In the southern spring and summer, when the sun shines for long periods of the day, chlorine reacts with ultraviolet rays, destroying ozone on a massive scale, up to 65 percent. This is what some people erroneously refer to as the “ozone hole.” In other regions, the ozone layer has deteriorated by about 20 percent.

Harming our atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years,

such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

Other greenhouse gases include methane—which comes from such sources as swamps and gas emitted by livestock—and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth’s ozone layer.

Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool.

Man’s poisonous byproducts.

Hazardous wastes are poisonous byproducts of manufacturing, farming, city septic systems, construction, automotive garages, laboratories, hospitals, and other industries. The waste may be liquid, solid, or sludge and contain chemicals, heavy metals, radiation, dangerous pathogens, or other toxins. Even households generate hazardous waste from items such as batteries, used computer equipment, and leftover paints or pesticides.

The waste can harm humans, animals, and plants if they encounter these toxins buried in the ground, in stream runoff, in groundwater that supplies drinking water, or in floodwaters, as happened after Hurricane Katrina. Some toxins, such as mercury, persist in the environment and accumulate. Humans or animals often absorb them when they eat fish.

Acid Rain

Deforesation

Ozone Depletion

Air Pollution

Toxic Waste

7 6

The European Union has formulated a long-term strategy to dovetail the policies for economically, socially and environmentally

sustainable development, its goal being sustainable improvement of the well-being and standard of living of current and future generations.

“This strategy provides an EU-wide policy framework to deliver sustainable development, i.e. to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The strategy identifies seven unsustainable trends on which action needs to be taken:

1.

Sustainable

Development

It rests on four separate pillars – economic, social, environmental and global governance – which need to reinforce one another. The economic, social and environmental consequences of all policies thus need to be examined in a coordinated manner and taken into account when those policies are being drawn up and adopted. The EU also needs to assume its international responsibilities with regard to sustainable development, whose various aspects – including democracy, peace, security and liberty – need to be promoted beyond EU borders.

This strategy, which complements the Lisbon Strategy, shall be a catalyst for policy makers and public opinion, to change society’s behaviour. It is built around measures covering the main challenges identified, as well as cross-cutting measures, adequate funding, the involvement of all stakeholders and effective policy implementation and follow-up.

The strategy is based on the following guiding principles: promotion and protection of fundamental rights, solidarity within and between generations, the guarantee of an open and democratic society, involvement of citizens, involvement of businesses and social partners, policy coherence and governance, policy integration, use of best available knowledge, the precautionary principle and the polluter-pays principle.”

1

2

3

To limit climate change and its effects by meeting commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and under the

framework of the European Strategy on Climate Change.

4

5

6

7The fight against global poverty

The EU must promote active ageing and make efforts to ensure the viability of pension and social protection

systems, integrate legal migrants and develop a Community immigration policy, improve the situation of families

Limiting major threats to public health

Sustainable management of natural resources

To promote more sustainable modes of production and consumption the link between economic growth and

environmental degradation needs to be broken and attention paid to how much ecosystems can tolerate.

Limiting the adverse effects of transport and reducing regional disparities

The strategy identifies 7 unsustainable trends on which action needs to be taken:

8

Green Thinking for Sustainable Future