Environmental problem in third world

Environment Problem In The Third World

Some of the most serious environmental damage is taking place in the Third World, especially destruction of forests and the loss of species. The resulting famines, floods, erosion and droughts are taking a rapidly increasing number of lives each year. As the trees are lost rain runs off more rapidly, eroding soils and causing more serious flooding, and more serious droughts later on. When there is less wood people burn more dung, which should be going back to the soil. There are now millions of “environmental refugees” people fleeing because their environments have become unable to support them. To some extent these increasingly serious environmental problems are due to population increase in the Third World and to corrupt and inefficient governments. But the main causes are the unjust way the global economy functions and the inappropriate approach to development the rich countries have promoted. These have encouraged poor countries to sell of their forests to purchase goods from rich countries. They have led poor countries into debt and thus obliged them to sell even more logs to pay their debts. They have led to the use of much land for export cropping and have therefore forced many poor people to clear forests and to overgraze poor lands in order to grow food for themselves. n other words poverty is a major cause of environmental damage in the Third World. Above all, the “limits to growth” analysis shows that t he Third World must be persuaded not to strive for the rich worlds industrialised, urbanised and affluent ways. That would require 10 times as much energy and resource consumption as now occurs in the world every year.

We Are Destroying The Life Support Systems Of The Planet

The most serious environmental concern of all is that we are damaging the biological processes that provide and renew the conditions all life on earth needs, such as an appropriate climate and a constant supply of nutrients. Every organism depends for its existence on a fairly stable supply of nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, etc. Where did the oxygen we just breathed in come from? It was produced by organisms such as trees and phytoplankton on the surface of the sea. But we are clearing trees and we are allowing ultraviolet rays to damage those micro-organisms.

Every major indicator shows a deterioration in natural systems. We only have about 40 years left in which to achieve sustainability. We must see all species and environments as contributing to 8 gigantic system which reproduces the conditions and the chemicals that all need in order to live. We all depend entirely on each other; any organism on earth can only get the things it must have in order to live because all the others are living normally and making those elements and conditions available. Yet we are damaging the system that provides these vital conditions.