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Protecting And Preserving Natural Resources And Animal Species

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PROTECTING NATURAL RESOURCES AND SPECIES   Earth’s natural resources include air, minerals, plants, soil, water, and wildlife.  Conservation  is the care and protection of these resources so that they can persist for future generations. It includes maintaining diversity of species, genes, and ecosystems, as well as functions of the environment, such as nutrient cycling.  Conservation is similar to  preservation , but while both relate to the protection of nature, they strive to accomplish this task in different ways. Conservation seeks the  sustainable  use of nature by humans, for activities such as hunting, logging, or mining, while preservation means protecting nature from human use. Continued human population growth has led to unsustainable rates of consumption of our natural resources, resulting in a loss of Earth’s  biodiversity . The main factors driving biodiversity loss include habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, overex...
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AIR POLLUTION Air pollution and climate change are closely related. As well as driving climate change, the main cause of CO2 emissions – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels – is also a major source of air pollutants. What’s more, many air pollutants contribute to climate change by affecting the amount of incoming sunlight that is reflected or absorbed by the atmosphere, with some pollutants warming and others cooling the Earth. These short-lived climate-forcing pollutants (SLCPs) include methane, black carbon, ground-level ozone, and sulfate aerosols. They have significant impacts on the climate: black carbon and methane in particular are among the top contributors to global warming after CO2. Health and ecosystem impacts of key short-lived climate-forcing pollutants Black carbon   ( BC, also known as soot ) is a component of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Particulate matter is the air pollutant that is most harmful to human health and the primary driver of air pollutant-i...
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