The Earth’s environment is finite and can be destroyed if we do not start population control. Measures need to be taken now to correct the current situation which includes the increase of deforestation and desertification, the decrease of farmland, more water pollution, the deteriorating ozone layer, and the greenhouse effect. It should be known that population control will not end all the problems mentioned above, but it would definitely allow more time for them to be fixed. Also, population control helps alienate environmental problems. The alternative, letting the population grow indefinitely could only hurt the environment. Overpopulation is a negative solution for everyone; plants, animals, land, water, and humans.
As the population grows, more and more forests are cleared. The two most common reasons for deforestation are to make houses for increased number of people to live in and to use wood as a fuel in industries. As a result, the trees that help us in reducing the air pollution through the process of photosynthesis are not able to do so anymore. One of the major issues that have lately been bothering environmentalists all over the world is global warming.
Forests are an important natural resource of India. They have moderate influence against floods and thus they protect the soil erosion. Forests also play an important role in enhancing the quality of the environment by influencing the ecological balance and life support system (checking soil erosion, maintaining soil fertility, conserving water,
regulating water cycles and floods, balancing carbon dioxide and oxygen content in the atmosphere etc. India has a forest cover of 76.52 million square km. of recorded forest area, while only 63.34 million square km.
The ozone layer protects the Earth from the ultraviolet rays sent down by the sun. The Ozone layer has been gradually ruined by the effect of the CFCs. These CFCs were used as solvents, refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and to blow foam plastics. For this reason, the use of CFCs in aerosols has been banned everywhere. Other chemicals, such as bromine halocarbons, as well as nitrous oxides from fertilizers, may also attack the ozone layer.
Today, human activities are causing a massive extinction of species, the full implications of which are barely understood.
More than 1.1 billion people live in areas that conservationists consider the richest in non-human species and the most threatened by human activities. While these areas comprise about 12 percent of the planet’s land surface, they hold nearly 20 percent of its human population.
The writer is a student interested to raise social issues