Global Environment

As humans living on this earth, we all need to play our part in conserving and protecting our global environment. This involves: minimizing the competition by people for space and resources, promoting sustainable development and maintaining biodiversity.

The competition for space and resources has resulted in deforestation, the ruining of sand dunes and overall the destruction of habitats. For example the clearing of land for raising livestock is a major cause of deforestation, in Costa Rica and Panama, 70 per cent of land has been cleared for pasture. This is a good example of humans clearing habitats for our own use. Where land has been often untouched and in a good position, development sites will pop up there. They are an ugly, cost reducing way to build houses, and may cause habitat destruction.

We also need to preserve environments for future, sustaining our resources. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Deforestation in Amazonia, seen from satellite. Th...

The Earth flag is not an official flag, since ther...

Biodiversity and Climate Change

This may mean using unleaded petrol or consuming less energy. An international assessment concluded that a warming of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (due to global warming) would cause a rise in global sea levels of 40 to 120 centimeters, leading to the flooding of many coastal areas. By reducing our consumption of energy levels, we can help reduce the risk of this happening.

As active citizens we need to maintain the variety of living organisms, preserve biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety of living things on earth: the different plants and animals and microorganisms, the genes they contain and the ecosystems they form. Developed countries have destroyed many natural habitats, and because tropical countries, most of which are not industrialized, are more species rich. Tropical forests are known to contain roughly half of...