Harmful Gases Into The Air example essay topic

Our planet is in danger. Humans have been living on this planet for two million years and in the last two hundred years humans have made a mess of the planet: chopped trees, killed animals, polluted air, water and soil, etc. That is why now we have a lot of ecological problems like the greenhouse effect, extinct and endangered animals and plants, water, air and soil pollution, holes in the ozone layer, problems of burying different kinds of waste and garbage, acid rains and others. The Earth has been getting hotter because people are producing too many greenhouse gases. A greenhouse is a building made of glass where you can grow plants that need a lot of warmth.

The sun shines in through the glass and warms the greenhouse, and the roof and walls keep the heat from getting out. The Earth is surrounded by blanket of invisible gases that act just like a greenhouse. The sun shines and the blanket of gases traps the heat like a roof, keeping it close to the planet. Factories, electric power plants and cars release a lot of gases which trap much of the sun's heat. This is called the greenhouse effect or global warming.

If the Earth's temperature gets hotter it can change the weather on the planet. People will not be able to grow crops in the usual places so they " ll face the threat of starvation. When people move to new lands, the plants and the animals that grow and live there can become endangered which means that they begin to disappear. Some of them become extinct which means that they all die out.

We enjoy pictures and stories about the dinosaurs who lived on the Earth many millions of years ago. They are all extinct now. That could happen to many other animals. The planet Earth is mostly water.

Oceans cover the biggest part of it- and there are lakes, rivers, streams and even water underground. All life- from the smallest bug to the biggest whale- depends on this water. Now in many places the water has become polluted. Rivers and lakes are polluted by garbage or by poisonous chemicals which are dumped into them.

Until about 150 years ago, the air was pure and clean-perfect for the people and animals of the Earth to breathe. Then people stated building factories and power plants, which with many other things they make like cars, put a lot of harmful gases into the air. Today the air is so polluted in some places that it is not always safe to breathe! The air in many industrial cities is filled with 'smog', i.e. smoke mixed with fog. Polluted air is not only bad for people and animals but for trees and other plants to grow. Polluted air damages crops, i.e. the food we eat.

The ozone layer is above the air we breathe. It helps us by blocking out rays from the sun that can harm our skin. We are lucky to have the ozone layer to protect us from radiation. Now the ozone layer is being damaged by gases that people have made.

The gases are called CFCs and halons. They are used in frigs, fire extinguishers, air conditioners, plastic foam and some other things. The chloro-fluoro carbons float up to the top of the atmosphere, where the ozone layer is, and 'eat up' the ozone. When we throw something away, it first goes in a garbage can, than a garbage truck takes the garbage to a garbage dump. After the truck leaves, a big tractor comes and pushes dirt on the top of the garbage. This is how most of the garbage is buried.

But now we make so much garbage that in many places there is not enough room to bury it all. What can we do to cut down the amount of garbage? We can recycle garbage (which means reusing materials instead of throwing them away) and precycle (not to buy things that can't be reused like plastic wrapping and other packaging). If we recycle and precycle garbage, we will produce much less garbage. When power plants burn coal to make electricity, and when cars burn gasoline, invisible gases are released into the air.

Some of these gases can mix with water and make it acidic. When these harmful gases get into rain clouds, they get mixed there with rain or snow. Then the acid falls back to earth with the rain or snow. This is called acid rain. Acid rain is extremely harmful to plants, rivers and lakes and creatures that live in them. It pollutes the water that animals and people need to drink.

These are the most urgent ecological problems. What can we people do to solve them? We can help stop the greenhouse effect by using less energy, protecting and planting trees. To prevent killing of animals all the countries should adopt laws stating severe punishment for poachers, should organize national parks and nature preserves for rare and endangered plants and animals. To keep water clean people mustn't dump litter in the seas, rivers, etc. people should also refuse to buy sprays with CFCs which affect the ozone layer and cause holes in it. To cut down the rubbish we should recycle paper, empty cans, plastics and glass and refuse to buy things that can't be recycled, i.e. precycle such things.

What can people do to stop acid rains is to drive cars less. Another good way is to save energy. The less energy we use, the less coal those power plants will have to burn.