Essay on the 15 biggest environmental problems of 2023

ESSAY ON THE 15 BIGGEST ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF 2023

In recent years, the environment has been in a critical and unfavorable state, but despite this, not all of us are aware of what is happening around the world due to the actions of human beings, and perhaps many of the governments. in the world that have not implemented policies in favor of caring for the environment and how to preserve biodiversity.

Global warming has been affected due to fossil fuels, since 4 years ago carbon dioxide levels had not been as high as they are today. Due to that, greenhouse gas emissions have increased and that caused the global temperature to cause catastrophic events throughout the world, in recent years we have realized that most of the United States and Australia have been affected by temporary fires of which to date the most have been registered. devastating, also many of the crops of the countries of the Middle East and thus have been affected by pests, and the most worrying thing is the very high temperatures that Antarctica has faced, exceeding 20 degrees.

Due to the climate crisis, tropical storms and meteorological phenomena such as hurricanes, heat waves and floods in recent years have been too intense and frequent, which has caused great damage to infrastructures, people and nature itself. Consideration must be given to investing in renewable energy and completely eliminating fossil fuels that have significantly damaged the environment.

Part of the climate crisis is the result of bad decisions on the part of the market, what many environmentalists and economists suggest to reduce the consequences is to increase the price of activities that emit greenhouse gases, this is possible through carbon taxes. But to completely eliminate it, governments must not only implement increased financing to reduce it, but also governments must be aware and implement policies that address each of the current market failures.

It must be taken into account that possibly organizations like the United Nations are not prepared to deal with environmental crises and on many occasions they are not obliged to comply with recommendations that implement mandatory policies to reduce disasters, since that has to be voluntary and there are no real repercussions for non-compliance as is. And taking into account that some countries are allowed to emit more due to economic development, and that it is necessary for many industries, even for the development of technologies.

Food waste and loss account for a third of annual greenhouse gas emissions; If this were a country, food waste would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States.

Food waste and losses occur at different stages in developing and developed countries; 40% of food waste occurs at the post-harvest and processing level in developing countries, while 40% of food waste occurs at the retail and consumer level in developed countries.

In the retail sector, an enormous amount of food is wasted for aesthetic reasons; in fact, more than 50% of products in the United States are discarded because they are considered "too ugly" to sell to consumers; this corresponds to approx. million tons of fruits and vegetables. This leads to food insecurity, which is one of the biggest environmental problems on the list.

Humanity has used more resources than the Earth can sustainably replenish over the past 50 years due to rapidly increasing human consumption, population, trade, and urbanization.

The sizes of mammal, fish, bird, reptile and amphibian populations declined by an average of 68 percent between 1970 and 2016, according to a recent WWF report. The report attributes this loss of biodiversity to a variety of factors, but primarily land. change of use, particularly the conversion of habitats, such as forests, grasslands and mangroves, to agricultural systems. Animals like pangolins, sharks, and seahorses are significantly affected by the illegal wildlife trade, and pangolins are critically endangered because of it.

According to a recent analysis, the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating. In the next 20 years, more than 500 species of land animals are likely to become extinct, equaling the number that went extinct over the previous century. Scientists say that without human destruction of nature, this rate of loss would have taken thousands of years.

In 1950, the world produced more than 2 million tons of plastic a year. Plastic waste in the environment increased in 2015 as a result of an increase in annual production up to 419 million tons. Currently, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature, every year 14 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans, damaging the habitats of wildlife and the creatures that live there. The research found that if no action is taken, the plastic crisis will grow to 29 million metric tons per year by 2040. By 2040, there could be 600 million tons of plastic in the ocean, more if we take microplastics into account.

Shockingly, National Geographic found that 91 percent of all plastic ever produced is not recycled, posing one of the most significant environmental problems of our time and another major market failure. Considering that plastic takes 400 years to decompose, it will take many generations before it ceases to exist. The long-term consequences of plastic pollution in the environment are still unknown.

Forests the size of 300 football fields are cut down every hour. If deforestation continues, the world's forests could contain only 10% of them by 2030 and could be completely gone in less than a century.

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