Argumentative Paper on Environmental Pollution Trends is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Argumentative Paper on Environmental Pollution Trends at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

The environment is an important part of life that must be safeguarded and preserved in the best way possible, because without it there would be no life. People have always used the environment to advance their own goals, but this can lead to environmental pollution, which in turn affects the world's population. In other words, human beings must be consciously concerned with the environment--whether air, water, or soil--because it affects them as much as they affect it. To assess the health of the environment and the effects of environmental pollution, we must look at the environment's different facets individually and how they interact. Discussing environmental pollution is only one part of the whole. The other component is assessing the extent of its negative effects on people.

Today, pollution is occurring on a vast and unprecedented scale worldwide, impacting virtually everyone and everything. We can best understand the dramatic changes or increase in pollution in the 20th and 21st centuries in terms of four long-term trends.

First, the world's population increased more than threefold in the 20th century, along with a twentyfold increase in the gross world product. These increases caused a demand on the use of fossil fuels, thereby increasing the release of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere. These emissions are the principal components of smog and give rise to acid rain.

The second long-term pollution trend recognized in the 20th century is the shift from gross environmental results to micro toxicity. Before World War II, the major public health issues centered on smoke and sewer-related issues. One incident, the killer fog over Donora, Pennsylvania, in 1948, sickened thousands and killed 20 people. An even more ominous microlevel threat has existed since the advent of nuclear technology. The ushering in of the nuclear age, chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare, and the peacetime applications of these technologies--such as agribusiness fertilization and power generation--has led to the development and widespread use of chemical, biological, and radioactive material, thus creating waste storage issues for generations to come.

The third environmental pollution trend is its global spread. Once thought to be a problem of the rich or more developed nations, pollution is now a serious problem for less-developed countries as well. For example, with the explosion of industrialization in both China and India, these countries are experiencing environmental pollution problems on a national scale that threaten the quality of life for both rural and urban residents. Moreover, data from the UN Global Environmental Monitoring System indicate that, by and large, cities in eastern Europe are more polluted with sulfur dioxide and other particles than most cities in Western developed countries. In essence, developing world citizens rank high in their exposure to pollutants, particularly toxic chemicals. Many of these impacted people reside in Mexico, India, and China.

The fourth trend in global environmental pollution is how localized environmental contamination becomes a larger, more global environmental assault, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the burning of oil wells during the Gulf Wars, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Such incidents, despite their having occurred in confined geographical regions, have had wider global environmental impacts.

Attention to global environmental issues approached critical mass with the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. The major crises of focus were the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, climate change, rapid shrinkage of tropical rain forests, the loss of biodiversity, the spread of deserts, and the decline of global fisheries. During the early 1990s scientists adopted the wider concept of global change to signify the level of impact humans have on global environmental conditions and their potential to alter permanently the functioning of the ecosystem on earth. To combat the aforementioned issues, the 116 heads of state attending the 1992 summit adopted a revised set of principles and action statements called "Agenda 21" and a host of environmental treaties on climate change and biodiversity as well as a statement on forest principles. To strengthen Agenda 21, the UN General Assembly created the Commission on Sustainable Development. Although its progress is questionable, the Commission on Sustainable Development works to improve environmental quality worldwide, as do other organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, government think tanks, scientific and professional societies, and the European Union (as a collective).

Bibliography:

1) Gardner, Gerald and Paul Stern. 1996. Environmental Problems and Human Behavior. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Hodges, Laurent. 1977. Environmental Pollution. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

2) McBoyle, G. R. 1973. "Meteorological Aspects of Air Pollution." Pp. 36-48 in Ecological and Biological Effects of Air Pollution, edited by G. M. Woodwell. New York: MSS Information Corporation.

3) Moeller, Dade W. 2004. Environmental Health. 3rd ed. Boston: Harvard University Press.

4) Socha, Tom. 2006. "Air Pollution: Causes and Effects."

5) Soroos, Marvin. 1999. "Global Institutions and the Environment: An Evolutionary Perspective." Pp. 27-51 in The Global Environment: Institutions, Law and Policy, edited by N. Vig and R. Axelrod. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

6) Speth, James. 1998. Environmental Pollution: A Long-Term Perspective. Washington, DC: World Resource Institute of the National Geographic Society.

7) Stewart, John C. 1990. Drinking Water Hazards: How to Know If There Are Toxic Chemicals in Your Water and What to Do If There Are. Hiram, OH: Envirographics.

8) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2006. "Ozone Science: The Facts behind the Phaseout."

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.