Stop Killing My Planet.

Another biology post here :) This one is going to be on the various way humans affect the environment. I'll probably be a bit harsh because I don't like what we're doing to our home.

Okay, so Eutrophication is when fertilisers accumulate in water and cause massive problems. Basically, some crappy farmer will fill his fields with fertilises, which we eventually run into nearby streams and ponds. The algae in these water sources simply love fertilisers, so they grow loads on the surface on the water. This means that the sun can't get through to the bottom of the stream or river or pond or whatever type of body of water it is. So the planets that live under the water can't photosynthesize without the sunlight, so they die. When the planets die, they're not oxygenating the water, so all this fishies living there have nothing to breathe. They die too, and before you know it, some idiot farmer has killed the whole pond. Not good.
Apart from killing loads of species, this makes the body of water in question look really ugly. The colour and smell of the water is disgusting and loads of animals die! Luckily, we can stop all that from happening by yelling at all farmers not to use external nutrients and by filtering the algae off the water every now and then :)

Another way humans effect the planet are our contributions to biodiversity. Biodiversity is when loads of different species live in one area together. But we're causing problems with that by over-hunting certain species and cutting down their habitats. And then lots of stuff starts to die and food chains get screwed up. And in fact, we're shooting our own feet by doing that, coz we need all those plants and stuff to make drugs and food and raw materials.
So the only ways we can fix those problems is by cloning species (imo, very silly), eating synthetic meat, regulating the use of land, protecting certain species by law, and breeding animals in captivity.

And of course, we're part of more problems. Namely, the hole in the ozone layer. Usually, the ozone layer protects us from the sun's UV rays. But not so much anymore thanks to all the water vapour we've created, the CFC's you get in deodorant and all the other pollution we get up to. And thats harming our own defences. But since that hole's been getting better, the icecaps have been melting, the global temperature has been rising and humans are more likely to get cancer.
To be honest, I don't particularly want cancer, so I think we should all do stuff to stop this hole getting any bigger. Like removing CFC's from sprays, minimising high-altitude flights and decouraging deforestation.

Another problem everyone's heard about is the greenhouse effect, or global warming. What that basically means, is that humans have been releasing too much CO2, methane, nitrogen oxide and fluorinated gases into the atmosphere. This, once again, causes tonnes of problems, like the icecaps melting, a global increase in temperature and loss of species. But, we can help solve this problem by reducing our use of fossil fuels, reducing pollutants and by saving energy.

And the final problem I have to know about is bioaccumulation. This is when a pesticide is eaten by an small animal and is then passed on up the food chain. Pesticides have really long half lives, so it's bad to have them in the food chain. Since pesticides have been in use, there's been a decrease in local bird populations and northern birds have been hugely effected because the pesticides end up in the fat they use to keep warm. The only way we can stop this happening is by cutting down on the amount of pesticides we use :)

The end, although I'll post again tonight for Chemistry :)