A recent trip to the Dallas Zoo helped to reaffirm my selection for this week’s blog. As I journeyed through the Zoo with some of my fellow classmates, I could not help but feel a disconcerting sense of guilt and sadness as I perused several animals’ background information that accompanied each enclosure. Many of the animals, for instance the otters, are experiencing declines in their populations and habitats due to water pollution stemming from human activity. Water pollution is defined as “the introduction of chemical, biological and physical matter into large bodies of water that degrade the quality of life that lives in it and consumes it” (Martelli). All living organisms need water, but when one group takes it upon themselves to utilize water sources recklessly and h0wever they deem fit, other life forms will surely suffer and currently do. Today, water pollution is one of the most noticeable and persistent signs of mankind’s impact on the natural world.
Greater Concerns at Hand
Many Americans would assert that water pollution is not a serious threat or issue. Because Americans and residents of other developed counties generally have access to clean water sources, they do not recognize the severity of water pollution as both a health concern and an environmental hazard. It is thought that because water treatment facilities filter out many of the pollutants and toxins within water, there is no imminent danger to human health. Contrary to this belief, filtered water is not new water. All the water on the planet is recycled. Whether water goes through water treatment or the water cycle, the water is not new – just renewed.
Some cancers, blood diseases, heart diseases, and skin lesions can occur due to the consumption and exposure of polluted water. Because humans rely on water so heavily for many of the activities they carry out through the course of a day, they are susceptible to ingesting or coming into contact with toxin infested water. There are a great many concerns in this world, and water pollution is a major one.
Detrimental Effects
Ecosystems can be dramatically changed or destroyed by water pollution. Dolphins, fish, birds, and several other species are killed due to their food and habitats being contaminated with toxins and waste that seep out into the bodies of water they inhabit. Furthermore, soil can also suffer due to water pollution because nutrients are flushed away and lost. The vegetation that does grow from polluted soil could carry some of the chemicals or toxins introduced if the plants absorbed some of the leakage that stems from the wastes of landfills or sewage systems. Contaminated vegetation could make its way onto the plates of many people, thus placing them in harm’s way.
My Position
It is shameful that so many life forms are declining because of our wastefulness, carelessness, and inability to properly dispose of our waste. From my understanding, all water is recycled. This means that the same water we drink, cook with, bathe in, water plants with, give to our pets, and flush never really leaves us. Furthermore, it does not help that many people litter. Sizeable amounts of plastic bottles, paper bags, cigarette buds, clothes, toys, waste, toxic chemicals, and various other items and substances all make their way into oceans, lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water because mankind’s inability to properly dispose of and find better means of ridding their waste. The toll our selfishness and way of life takes on other species is reprehensible. Plants and animals that were thriving on this planet long before our species evolved are nearing their end because of our inability to put forth a collective effort to change the way we live our lives on this planet. Life is all about choices, and nature does not negotiate. We have to be mindful. We have to make changes. We have to not only protect and save our fellow life forms but our world as well.
http://everydaypollution.wordpress.com/tag/urban/page/8/
Citation(s)
Martelli, Don. "Pollution | Encyclopedia." GreenStudentU: Green Students,
Environmental Education, & Eco-Lifestyles. One to One Global, Inc.
Web. 28 June 2011.
Environmental Education, & Eco-Lifestyles. One to One Global, Inc.
Web. 28 June 2011.
<http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/pollution>.
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