ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

FÁY ANDRÁS SZAKKOZÉPISKOLA SZAKISKOLA ÉS KOLLÉGIUM

The environment

The environment means surroundings in which people, animals and plants develop and exist. There are a lot of problems what is connected with the environment. Ecology is a branch of biology which investigate relationships between living beings and their environment

The most serious ecological problems of today are the pollution of air, water and soil, the destruction of ecosystem, disappearance of many species of animals and plants, the weather changes, acid rains, the warming up of the Earth’s surface, the destruction of tropical rain forests and the breaking of the ozone layer. Most of this damage (which proceeds faster and faster) has not been caused by natural catastrophes such as earthquake, floods or tornadoes but by the man himself and his technical progress.

Pollution

If you hear the word „environmental pollution” you think of factories, plants, cars and buses.
The growing number of cars on roads and highways contribute much to the air pollution.

Factories produce large quantities of carbon dioxide, radioactive particles, sulphur and nitrogen, which get into the air. Some of them in combination with water make sulphuric acid in the clouds.
These dangerous clouds are then blown by the winds and later fall as acid rain. Acid rains kill trees, and then they get into the soil and make it infertile. The polluted rain water is carried to the rivers and all life disappears from them. Factories directly increase water pollution because many of them are built near rivers into which they put their chemical waste.
The building of dams causes flooding of large areas of nature and disappearance of many typical animals, birds and plants of the region.

Also farmers pollute the soil using a lot of pesticides and fertilizers. This pollution can also poison groundwater.

We need air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat, but there is a growing number of people in the Earth so that we have to share these everything with more people.

It’s a very sad fact that everywhere you go you can find a huge amount of rubbish, in the streets, in the parks, in the grass and flower-beds, in the woods, at the bus-stops and railway platforms. People throw litter away for examples cigarette stubs, bottles, cans, tins, batteries, plastic bags. This litter spreads by the wind. I live in the capital city of Hungary in Budapest. It isn’t a tidy city. Many factories and cars cause smoke in this city. I think the most polluted area of our country is the capital and its region. There are many factories which spout smoke out of their chimneys, without any filtration. There is smog mostly in the rush hours when the air is full of the exhaust fumes, for example carbon dioxide. That’s why by-pass roads should be built around towns.

CO2 is a very poisonous gas, because it can destroy the ozone layer which is around the world’s atmosphere. The huge amount of CO2 causes the greenhouse effect. The atmosphere becomes warmer and warmer, the Ice of the Poles is melting, the levels of the seas are rising, and deserts are spreading out. This is a global effect and causes incalculable natural disasters.

The Greens organize protest marches, try to convince other’s to join them, but many people identify them as hooligans and trouble-makers.
Unfortunately there always will be few people who want to make more and more profit even they destroy their environmental.

In villages the air is cleaner then in Budapest, because there aren’t any factories and cars. They can’t pollute the environment. If you would like a car, you must buy it with four-stroke engine. Cars with four-stroke engine pollute the air much less than the cars with two-stroke engine. Nowadays, you must have a catalytic conventor.
Trees produce oxygen. If you cut down a tree you should plant a new one. They clear the air and they make better the atmosphere. The ozon-layer around the world is getting very thin. Over the Atlantic there’s an ozon-hole. In summer the UV radiation is very high in this region. I think environmental protection is very important for everybody. Our earth is endangered by us humans, and can be only saved only by us, humans.

Greenhouse effect

In the last 100 years the Earth’s surface has warmed up by more than half a degree, this change could cause rising the sea levels by up to one and half meters by the year 2030. The Greenhouse effect is caused by polluted atmosphere which was polluted by carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and chlorofluorocarbons.

The best protection is to stop producing these gases and destroying rain forests. It is worth replacing old power plants with nuclear power which reduce the damage. Also nuclear power has its disadvantages, in this case there are alternative sources of energy : hydropower, solar power, geothermal etc.

Ozone Hole

The ozone gap is thinning at a rapid speed. It is a layer which protect us from dangerous UV rays, these could damage the life on the Earth.

Possible effects of the sun’s UV rays:
Eyes: cataracts and blindness
Skin: premature aging, skin cancer and wrinkling
Immune system: they brake down the immune system
Crops: they could interrupt the process of photosynthesis
Sea life: growth of plankton which are a vital part of the food chain in the world’s oceans. The areas of largest ozone hole are Antarctica, South America, Australia, New Zealand. The main destroyers are CFC and halons which are used in refrigerators and air conditioners. Scientists estimate that one atom of chlorine can destroy 100 000 ozone molecules.

Environment and pets

Nowadays the environmental protection becames one of the main problems. Due to the development of technical knowledge, we are using more and more natural and sinthetical materials. Often we want only to make our life easier, but we don’t think of the following consequence. Also we can find one fridge in a flat, but the result of these can be the ozone layer depletion and the increas of the average temperature in the whole world.

Our loving for the comfortable life causes pollution and destroyes our health. In the city the children can’t play in the parks because they are very dirty. Some of these are full of vaste.
Connected with the development of production we forget the danger of running out of the sources. However in technical way we could filter these dangerous poison gases.

In the agriculture we use too much certificial fertilizers that we eat with our nurrition  and animals do these too. Animal food include numerous poisons that get nito our body. We recognise these bad effects only some years later.

Not only the continents but the seas and oceans hide some risks for the environment in themselves. More and more tankers transport oil and natural gas from one continent to the other one and meanwhile it can sprind a leak and their content covers the sourface of the water. Fish can’t get enough oxigene and the wings of birds become vasted with oil, and therefore they can not fly.
People destroy the rain-forests because of profit and they don’t deal with new plantations.
We could list such examples for a long time, but the responsibility of people would be the most important.

Environmental protection

I think that the best way how to reduce pollution is reducing, reusing and recycling.
People should make and buy environmental goods, solve the problem of the selective garbage collection system and recycling, save the air, the waters, the woods, and bring up environment-minded children. I think most of us want to live in a peaceful and unpolluted World.

If the destruction of the environment continues, the life on this planet will be endangered. People, animals, birds and plants cannot exist without air, water and soil.

In recent years many environmental organizations have been founded. E.g. Green Peace.
Environmentalists point to the most serious ecological problems and try to give their warnings the greatest popularity possible through the mass media and public campaigns. Many of their activities have been successful. e.g. the use of DDT was banned by law all over the world, catalytic converters and unleaded petrol in cars are compulsory in many countries the use of phosphates in soaps is forbidden, most industrial countries have agreed to stop using ozone-destroying chemicals in aerosol sprays, smoking in public or work is restricted by law in many countries.

There is a great need for environmental education. Children of all ages should be taught about the mains relationship to nature. They should be educated to a much better understanding of the fact that this planet, weather, climate, water, air, soil, people, animals, birds and plants create on ecosystem.

Acid rain

What is acid rain?
Acid rain is caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Although natural sources of sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides do exist, more than 90% of the sulphur and 95% of the nitrogen emissions occurring in eastern North America come from human origin. These primary air pollutants come from the use of coal in the production of electricity, from base-metal smelting, and from fuel combustion in vehicles. Once released into the atmosphere, they can be converted chemically into such secondary pollutants as nitric acid and sulfuric acid, both of which dissolve easily in water. The resulting acidic water droplets can be carried long distances by very strong winds, returning to Earth as acid rain, snow, or fog.

Who is affected?
Basically every one who comes in contact with acid rain is affected. Among one of the serious side effects of acid pollution on humans is respiratory problems. The SO2 and NO2 emmisions give rise to respitory problems such as asthma, dry coughs, headaches, eye, nose and throat irritations. An indirect effect of acid rain on humans is that the toxic metals dissolved in the water are absorbed in fruits, vegetables and in the tissues of animals. Even though these toxic metals do not directly affect the animals, they have serious effects on humans when they are being eaten.

How did it happen?
One of the main causes of acid rain is sulphur dioxide. Natural sources that let out this gas are volcanoes, sea spray, rotting vegetation and plankton. However, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are largely to be blamed for about half of the emissions of this gas in the world. When sulphur dioxide gets in the atmosphere, it oxidizes to first form a sulphate ion. It then becomes sulphuric acid as it joins with hydrogen atoms in the air and falls back down to earth in the form of acid rain, snow, or fog. Oxidation occurs the most in clouds and especially in heavily polluted air where other compounds such as ammonia and ozone help to speed up the reaction, changing more sulphur dioxide to sulphuric acid.

When did it start?
Since acid rain is emmited from natural sources such as volcanoes, sea spray, rotting vegetation and degasing plankton, acid rain has always been around. Although the first recorded acid rain "storm" was in 1944 when readings of pH 2.4 (as acidic as vinegar) were recorded during storms in New England.

Where is the problem?
Acid pollution ranges everywhere from the U.S.(the world's biggest producer of sulfur dioxide) to the Arctic (the world smallest producer of sulfur dioxide). Because of prevailing winds acidic water droplets can be carried long distance, returning to earth as acid rain, snow or fog. Canada, for example, produces about half of it's own acid rain and imports the rest from the U.S.

There are 4 ways to reduce gases (which contain sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) from power plants.

1. The first and probably best way is energy conservation. This means using less energy. Less energy means less coal burned in power plants. Burning less coal means less acid in the air.
2. Burning low-sulfur coal is the second step. There is a difference between high-sulfur coal and low-sulfur coal. High-sulfur coal will give off more sulfur in the air when it is burned. Burning low-sulfur coal will give off less sulfur which means less acid will enter the air. However, high- sulfur costs two thirds the price of low-sulfur coal.
3. Then there are smokestack scrubbers. Scrubbers capture sulfur from smoke before it enters the air. The captured sulfur is mixed with other things, such as lime. This creates a semiliquid which looks like wet cement. This also becomes a problem. The captured sulfur has nowhere to go. One power plant can capture an amount of 400 tons of sulfur mixture a day.
4. Then there's the last way-search for alternate energy sources. One alternate source is nuclear power, but some believe this source may create problems even worse than acid rain. Other sources include solar power (power from the sun) and wind power. These two sources have hardly ever been tried.

The Business Environment
Decision Making and Economic Systems

Those who make decision in business are usually faced with the following fundamental questions:
What goods or services should be produced or offered?
How will the goods or services be produced?
How will they be marketed (sold to public)?

First, the market situation should be analyzed. When a new product is to be launched, the producer must decide whether there is any demand for it and, if so, he must watch the competitors. A company should also consider how to produce it, and this raises a number of questions:
- Are a trained labour force and suitable machinery available to start production?
- How can raw materials be obtained?
- How can transport problems be solved?
- How can goods be marketed?

It is usually the sales manager’s responsibility to define the sales strategy and to decide which markets can be reached at what price. The problems of the market should be considered in the wider context of the economic and political systems of the country. Today most countries claim to have free market system. This system may differ from one country to another. In some countries government control is important. In these countries industries that are central to the nation’s economy are government-owned to varying degrees. Typically, such industries are telecommunications, public utility companies and mining. Less critical industries like textile manufacturing or retail trading tend to be dominated by private enterprise. These systems are sometimes called mixed economies. By contrast, the economic system in which the government controls the whole economy is called a planned economy. Now there are only a few countries that still believe in this system.