The Industrial Revolution and the Environment

The Industrial Revolution and the Environment

Introduction

The ecological problem and the environmental crisis arising from the fact that human beings can actively intervene means to satisfy their needs, and through it, causing much damage to the environment and all living things that depend on that environment. The intervention of mankind over nature has been extended in the modern era as a result of scientific and technological development (O'Riordan, 2000). Some people have had an over nature, exploiting natural resources renewable and nonrenewable uncontrollably, putting thus in danger of life on the planet. The ever-increasing population and the industrial revolution created the need to increase the production of materials that serve as raw material for the factories. For this reason there was an increase in mining activities. At the same time, the population growth caused an increase in food production, which led to the development of activities such as agriculture and livestock (Stanley, 1999).

Discussion

Today, the lifestyle of industrial civilization is based primarily on the massive use of non-renewable and polluting, whose only advantage is its high energy efficiency. Western society imposed a lifestyle characterized by waste, that is, unnecessary use and misuse of the material and energy resources. The consumer society leads people to expend energy in irrational and unnecessary objects continuously acquire and of short duration, which also require excessive energy expenditure both for manufacturing and for its operation. The unprecedented demand for resources and ecosystem change are producing an ever-accelerating deterioration in the ability of environment to sustain life (O'Riordan, 2000). The major environmental problems include:

The air pollution and soil waters discharge from industrial and agricultural waste. The most serious effects are: the global warming of the atmosphere (greenhouse effect), due to the emission of gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and CFSS) which absorb light reflected from the Earth's surface and, by the action of chemicals based on chlorine and bromine, which allows a greater penetration of ultraviolet rays until its surface (Stanley, 1999).

Since the oil crisis of the 70's, developed countries began to be aware that they should seek other sources of energy not be exhausted and therefore were not subject to market fluctuations. The depletion of energy resources will require a substantial change in current production quotas of the different conventional energy sources. Oil will remain the dominant fuel in the first half of this century. After gradually be replaced by gas, which has the greatest potential for growth of fossil fuels. While maintaining ample reserves, coal will not increase their current market shares for its significant environmental impact. The nuclear fission, which is contrary to public opinion, no longer used in developed countries, although it may remain in developing countries. It is expected that hydropower and other renewable will be able not only to compensate the decrease of the energy supplied by fossil fuels, but also satisfactorily meet the expected increase in power consumption of future societies (O'Brien & Leichenko, 2003).

Deforestation

Tropical rainforests are the richest habitats on the planet and ...