Environment is a Place For Human Survive and Doing Activities.

Introduction

Environment is a place for human survive and doing activities. It supplies a base for humans with the natural resources needed for production and consumption. As technology becomes more advanced, more people demanding for convenience and quality of life. Due to the negative impact of high industrial development, it leads to a global crisis. There are many factors that affect the environment, such as deforestation, animal agriculture, rising sea levels, chemical contamination, pollutions, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, severe storm, overpopulation, endangered species and others.

Due to human factors, the environment is polluted by harmful substances, which causing the biological growth and reproduction and life of human being to be adversely effected. Environmental pollution will causing direct damage impact onto the ecosystem. For example, desertification and forest destruction will causing indirect harm to human society. Sometimes the harm of this indirect environmental effect is greater than the direct harm caused at that time. Besides that, the increasing in population bring tremendous pressure to the environment resulting in global warming due to the human activities.

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Global warming will reduce global precipitation, melting glaciers and frozen soils, rising sea levels and so on which will harm the balance of natural ecosystems and threaten human food supply and living environment.

Therefore, in order to protect the environment, we must come out with some solutions to fix the environment issues. We analyse and figure out the domestic and global environment current issues and provide the better methods to maintain the origin environment in the earth.

Local news about environmental issues

Plastic Pollution

According to the study in 2013, Malaysia was known as the worst plastic pollution in the world. The land full of dumped plastic, and somehow the human burnt the plastic to solve the problem but only 2% of plastic had been recycled. A person wastes a plastic seems a minor matter but the whole citizen using plastic every day, even they use plastic in packaging while buying stuff, throwing rubbish with plastic bag and so on. They just bin and forget it. After gather them all up it is around million tonnes of plastic waste in Malaysia.

The growing rate of plastic pollution is still increasing due to the urbanization and population rapid growth. The more population using plastic, the more plastic consumed at the same time. Besides that, plastic is cheap and affordable to the manufacture. Most of the manufacture use to choose plastic as their packaging materials because it is more cost saving to pack their goods such as foods, electronic items, plastic bottles, cans and others. With the large number of population, the society also tend to demand for cheaper and durable goods but it will resulting in large resources consumption which is plastic pollution. Moreover, plastic is slow in decompose. It contains chemical elements that makes the plastic hard to decompose even the simplest type like mineral water bottle need around 50 years to decompose it.

The plastic pollution brings impact that causes water pollution also. With the timeline pass, the dumped plastics will contaminate the soil that contains toxic. Then when the water runoff from those dumped areas to the river, it may kills the organisms in the water. Other than that, it will also reflect on human health that might cause disease because of drinking the polluted water. Furthermore, human think that burning plastic is the solution for plastic pollution but it releases the carbon monoxide and toxic dioxins once burning. This will cause the air pollution and the citizen suffering difficult breathing, coughing and respiratory problems. Besides that, the toxic released also kills the animals. It will effect the whole ecosystems such as less fresh air release from plants.

The solution for plastic pollution is plastic bag disable using in supermarket. Even though some of the supermarket no using plastic bag during weekend but the problem still cannot fixed. Thus, the government should encourage the citizen using the eco bag while buying stuff. The supermarket can apply the paper bag while packaging. Moreover, more recycle bin is required provide to the society so the citizen will not throw the plastic everywhere. Government can fine if citizen are found throwing plastic anywhere. For the manufacture, they can choose biodegradable plastic to finalize their goods. The biodegradable plastic can decompose naturally with less harmful to the environment compared to the traditional plastics. In addition, people are encourage to use the reusable water bottle to reduce plastic waste that will release the toxic to the environment.

I feel disappointed with this environmental pollution and inability to solve this issue. As a citizen, we must be responsible to make our nation's environment clean and save. This cannot be made by only one person but all of the citizen have to do it together. Environment is our home, we have to protect it so we can stay in a comfortable place.

Deforestation

The article titled "It is large-scale deforestation, says WWF-Malaysia" mainly discuss about the conversion of 4515 hectare of land from forest to government land in Terengganu. This incident was strongly opposes by WWF-Malaysia (World Wildlife Fund-Malaysia). The land conversion are from primary or secondary forests to oil palm plantations. This incident is to be said as a large scale deforestation and would lead to significant loss of biodiversity, socioeconomic impacts and distraction of the ecosystem. Besides that, the degazettement of forest is unnecessary and not in support of the United Nations's Sustainable Development Goals pledges which is to halt deforestation by 2020 said WWF-Malaysia. Expending oil palm plantations on degazetted reserves forest would not be an economically-sound decision as it would lead to decreases or cessation of demand for palm oil and its derivatives from major industry players who have made a No-Deforestation pledge. WWF-Malaysia also advised Terengganu to reconsider the decision in degazettement of the reserves forest and explore more sustainable options to develop the state.

Deforestation is the main problem as mention in the case above. This problem began when the government of Terengganu state planning to convert reserved forest for an oil palm plantation project. WWF-Malaysia had took this action in this case seriously and urged Terengganu to explore other sustainable option for the state's development. Besides that, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) had created a mission to minimise tropical deforestation as one of their main mission. A large scale deforestation however, according to WWF-Malaysia will lead to significant loss of biodiversity, directly and indirectly socioeconomic impacts, and also the disruption of delicate ecosystems. Moreover, WWF-Malaysia adds that there have been too many unnecessary deaths of iconic and endangered species in 2017 alone due to deforestation. Many animals end up entering kampungs and plantations when their forest homes being destroyed, leading to what is called "human wildlife conflict". This normally ends up badly for the animals, for instant elephants are often poisoned to prevent them from eating fruits, including the oil palm bunches. In order to maintain the reserve forest, Terengganu State Government had offered TDM Berhad 4515 hectare of land for domestic oil palm plantation expansion plans as well as replace the affected areas with other lands as Forest Reserve. TDM Berhad will make a payment of RM250 per hectare per year to a trust fund for wildlife conservation and conflict management.

Forests have been destroyed rapidly in a century for multiple purposes. Deforestation are considered as the second major driver of climate change, responsible for 18% to 25% of global annual carbon dioxide emissions. As compare to the news I read previously, regarding the forest clearing in Hulu Sempam on durian plantations as a threat to Malayan tigers. The durian plantations are destroying tiger habitats. The clearance of natural forest for any sort of plantation in tiger habitats would not only fragment and reduce natural habitat, but also likely expose the area to higher poaching incidences. If this incident continued without taking any serious action on it, the next generation might don't know how the forest look like. Oil palm plantation was a good planned as it could develop and increase the economics of the country, but the reserved land should be maintain to keep balance in ecosystem. Not only oil palm plantation, development of new cities from reserved forest is also not commented. In order to control more forest being destroy, the responsible parties should take action to overcome the problem. For instance, the forestry department should fine the person who did illegal logging. Last but not least, me as a student point of view, should consider using electronic devices in our studies and save our document in it instead of using a lots of papers for printing.

Global news about environmental issues

Overpopulation

In the past half century, world population exploding. The population so far is between 7.5 and 7.6 billion people. Overpopulation can lead to negative environmental, economic conditions, increased unemployment rate, lack of food and others.

There are many reasons causing overpopulation. One of the reasons is with the development of technology and medical care, people's living have become longer and high live birth rates. As long as the birth rate exceeds the mortality rate for a long time, the population will increase significantly.

Overpopulation has many effects. The first is the lack of water. Overpopulation will create greater demand for world freshwater supplies, leading to "water stressed". This will make it difficult for people who living in poverty-stricken areas to get clean water. Commentators predict that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will facing water shortages. The second is resource consumption. As the population grows, the more amount of resources required. Conflicts caused by scarcity of resources and overcrowding, inducing war. Not only that, but also brought agricultural influence. As the global population increases, more food is needed. So people rely on mechanization, pesticides and chemical fertilizers to produce crops quickly. This practice will cause soil erosion or depletion. Overpopulation is also reflecting to the pressure of deforestation. There will be more food, wood products for making furniture and firewood used for fuel is needed. According to statistics, it shows that about 80% of deforestation and agricultural get relating to each other in the world. Deforestation also led to global warming. As the forest has been cut down and burned, carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere.

Therefore, we must take some measures against the problem of overpopulation. First, provide reproductive education to the society. Lack of reproductive education also be the one of reasons causing overpopulation. Better education will let people learn more about the potential consequences of birth for example they will facing food shortage due to too many children. Second, overpopulation can be alleviated by birth control. The government has policies to regulate the number of children that allowed to have within a family's birth. This policy can reduce the birth rise. Third, improve technology standards and provide adequate resources. People must get improving in agriculture, such as increasing cultivated land because more cultivated land can increase the production. Not only that, but also need to educate farmers to master new methods and new knowledge in making agricultural products. Forth is immigrants. People immigrants looking for new land. Besides that, establish colonies to solve the overpopulation in the country also can avoid the problem of people being crowded and having disputes.

I think the overpopulation issue should be concern by every countries. Actions should be taken by government to solve the problem to avoid the serious consequences of overpopulation.

Water Pollution

This article is entitled as "What Are the Biggest Environmental Concerns? - Water"

This article is focusing on the causes of water pollution and the serious impact of water pollution brought to environment and human. Water pollution is an increasingly dangerous problem that affecting people all over the world. Normally, we called the polluted water as sewage which means water-carrying waste. Sewage is stuff that leaves your toilet or the chemical disposal that flow out from industrial plants. The presence of sewage is unavoidable as everyones of us contributes to it. Thus, we need to bear with the consequences.

The effects of sewage on the environment are largely negative. Most people believe that water pollution is an unavoidable result of human activity. Which if we want to have cars, factories, ships and oil, we must estimate and accept pollution to some extent. But this is far from the truth. The toxic and chemical disposal from the factory or industrial plant is the major contributor of sewage. Toxic and chemical waste was also getting into our waterways which will cause illness in humans and poison aquatic life living nearby. Water pollution are caused by the industrial companies drained the industrial waste such as lead and mercury into fresh water which ending up in the sea. This works make them easier to clean up their wastes but causing pollution to the sea. Sewage and waste water are chemically treated before being released into the sea, but it carrying harmful bacteria and damaging chemicals that caused several health problems for humans and sea life.

Besides that, oil leakage is another party of contributors. The oil tankers that haven't been adequately protected can be involved in an accident. When large quantities of oil spilled into the sea, it causes huge damaging when entering the sea as it doesn't dissolve. Moreover, the huge amount of plastic which used by the human population is not biodegradable. This will automatically end up our oceans, since it will harm and kill a great deal of our sea life. Furthermore, flooding can cause completely untreated sewage to enter the rivers and other water resources, causing them polluted. The polluted water can cause the spread of serious diseases such as e-coli, diarrhea and hepatitis A. These diseases can threaten human health or even cause death. Water pollution will harm the animals and inflicts damage to the food chain.

The negative impacts brought by the sewage is on the rise and therefore, some actions are needed to be taken by each countries, global organizations or the citizens. The government of each countries could launch a campaign about caring our water sources to raise the awareness of every people. The government could select one day of a week as the "No plastic bag day", on this day human usage on plastic bag is restricted and plastic bag is not available is anywhere. This reduction can help in reducing water from being polluted. Not only this, some TV advertising or banner about the sewage consequences can also let the public to be alert of the responsibilities they have. Moreover, the law of enforcement should be imposed to those who violates the regulations. For example, in U.S, the Clean Water Act impose a penalty of certain amounts to any individual or industry who dump or dispose the untreated chemical substances to the rivers or oceans. They also funded the construction of sewage treatment plants under the construction grants program. This plant handles the treatment process of sewage. The sewage undergoes remove of pollutants and some chemical and biological treatment before entering sources like river or ocean.

I feel sad of this current global issue because the nature is being jeopardized due to human selfishness. Human beings only care about what they gonna to obtain and almost ignore the negative impacts brought by the water pollution. The information that I read above has raise the awareness of me against this issue. I realized that is how important the water is needed to be taken care of, treatment is necessary to be done to them and the morality and responsibility values are a must to be implemented into the younger generations' mindsets. Therefore, we could minimize the occurrence of water pollution problems.

Conclusion

Last but not least, environment is all the natural things around us such as sunlight, air, water, soil, plants and so on which let us feel comfortable in living. It is a home we stay within the earth. We need to treasure the nature environment given by God without destruct it. All environmental issues are caused by human activities, so we have the responsibility to fix them. To ensure the later generations have the passion to protect our environment, we need to be a good example to the youngers such as making all things recycle, plant more plants which provides more fresh air to the environment, getting active in revolving the activities provided by government to save the environment and so on.

Polluted environment will effect our daily lives negatively even the economies, social, emotional and physical. We should justify our mistakes and return environment back to the origin safety and healthy from the pollutions. Government should take action such as cleaning the polluted water, throwing rubbish everywhere will be fined, forbid in deforestation which more than nation's plan and provide more public transportation like LRT to reduce the use of car that makes air pollution. Besides that, environmental friendly education should be provided by government especially in school and also to the society to ensure the citizen will know the human rights towards the environment. If there is a save environment, we will get a healthy body too.

References

MANGAI BALASEGARAM. (2019, January 27).Human Writes: Malaysia rated one of the world's worst for plastic pollution. Retrieved from,

It is large-scale deforestation, says WWF-Malaysia. (2018, January 11). Retrieved April 8, 2019, from D. Hwang. (2018, July 9). 7.5 billion and counting how many humans can the Earth support?. Retrieved from,

What Are the Biggest Environmental Concerns?-Water. (2018, October 22). Retrieved April 10, 2019, from