Poisoning Planet Earth

Poisoning Planet Earth — page 1 — It s an ill bird that fouls its own nest English proverb e live in an age of marvels ideas people and goods speedily fly around the world Stores are crammed with tempt ing goods such as cell phones computers and exotic foods But when we buy new things our planet is paying a price too That price can be fragile environments destroyed by overfarming streams poi soned by factory toxins and filthy air from fossil fuels spewing from the trucks carrying our goods to market Modern humans and their indus trial ways are an outsized burden on the planet One reason is that there are just so expenses many of us The United Nations predicts that by 2050 almost 9 2 billion people will be living on Earth almost four times the number of people living on Earth in 1950 I It isn't just our numbers though We have forgotten the early childhood lesson If you make a mess clean it up In this volume you willlearn howcities like Los Angeles are frequently shrouded

Poisoning Planet Earth — page 2 — INTRODUCTION with brown smoggy skies caused by the burning of fossil fuels especially gas emis sions from cars Acid rain precipitation mixed with gases released from coal burning plants kills fish and forests and dam ages many structures including important I An aerial photo taken on Oct 8 2010 shows a reservoir of red sludge pouring through the walls of a dam at an aluminum plant near Kolontar Hungary The ecological disaster began five days earlier when the walls gave way allowing waves of toxic red mud to sweep through the nearby small village killing five people Attila Kisbenedek AFP Getty Images

Poisoning Planet Earth — page 3 — PoisoNING PLANET EARTH PoLLUTION AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS monuments Like smog coal emissions can harm lung and heart tissue in humans Fossil fuels also emit carbon dioxide and other so called greenhouse gases gases that in excessive amounts heat up the planet to unhealthy levels You will also learn how fertilizers contain ing chemicals like nitrogen which plants use for growth can end up in waterways if farmers have poor soil conservation techniques This nitrogen can make so much algae blossom that it chokes out all other life in the water And then there is the problem of what to do with the ever increasing mountains of garbage that pile up in landfills One solution is recycling The United States recycles about 30 percent of its solid waste for instance But it also makes more trash than many other nations approximately 4 5 pounds 2 kilograms of garbage per per son are generated each day in the United States significantly more than the 2 5 to 4 pounds 1 1 to 1 8 kilograms per person that many European nations and Japan make Radioactive pollutants have become a major concern since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japan in 1945 Nuclear power plants generate hard to store waste and occasionally disasters have

Poisoning Planet Earth — page 4 — INTRODUCTION occurred most notably the 1986 catastro phe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union Exposure to radiation can cause cancer and numerous other illnesses though it may take years for the effects of such exposure to become apparent About 620 000 square miles 1 6 million square kilometers of tropical rainforest are cleared each decade If deforestation con tinues at that rate all tropical forests on Earth which make up the habitat of two thirds of the planet s species will be gone in less than a century Overpopulation in the Sahel region of Africa has forced hun gry people to farm increasingly fragile land bordering the Sahara contributing to the problem of desertification In 2006 the UN warned that desertification threatened the livelihoods of about one billion people What s next Individuals can make a dif ference by consuming less taking fewer car trips and recycling Perhaps most impor tantly however governments businesses and environmental organizations need to work together to find large scale solutions to these problems To do this will take much political will But this volume will show why it's so important for us not to foul the nest we rely on for our very

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