Environment – 16 Photos Show Our Danger

16 Environment Photos (#5 Made My Jaw Drop)

Our environment – it’s where we live.

Our environment, our planet, our Earth provides more than enough to sustain a variety of life.

The environment generates the air we breathe, the water we drink, and allows food to grow to sustain us.

Do we appreciate and respect it?

Do we take only what we need and leave the rest?

I’ll let these 16 dramatic photos speak for themselves.

1: Mexico City

Mexico City is home to 20 million people – whatever used to be on these hills is long since wiped out as people continue to move to urban centres to find employment.

Humans replace Nature as far as the eye can see.

2: Oregon Forest

This used to be a magnificent old-growth forest. But it was decimated in order to make way for a new dam.

Of course we need water. Large scale dams (such as the Hoover Dam) have allowed cities to grow where they otherwise wouldn’t. But there is a heavy price to pay for such massive engineering and changing of natural water flows.

The effects are far more widespread than simple flooding.  Natural fish migration routes are closed, and sediment changes transform landscapes. Plants, animals and fish in a free-flowing river cannot survive in a reservoir due to huge differences in temperature, chemical composition, oxygen levels and more. Instead, reservoirs often host non-native and invasive species. Many reservoirs also contribute significant greenhouse gases which cause climate change.

Hydroelectric energy is often classed as clean, renewable energy, but due to the damage it causes, I don’t believe it should be.

3: Polar Bear

This polar bear in Svalbard, Norway had a horrible, slow death from starvation .

Our over-consumption is causing climate change which is melting the polar ice caps. This deprives polar bears of their living space and their food.

4: Tar Sands

Pollution and destruction as far as the eye can see.

Tar sands, also known as oil sands, produce oil, a fossil fuel. It’s messy, dangerous and expensive.

And it’s ruinous. Even after everything has been extracted and the sites abandoned, nothing can ever grow there again.

5: eWaste

Much of the West’s used electronics end up in developing countries.

This is an eWaste dump in Ghana in Africa. Used electronics contain valuable parts, but the cheapest way to salvage them is with toxic chemicals. The ground and the air are full of toxins, and this is a daily “office” for many people, who may also live nearby. Their health problems are enormous (imagine the future for the little boy in the photo), but poverty leaves them no choice.

Next time your mobile phone contract is up for renewal, keep your existing one and get a price reduction.  If you’re thinking a new, even bigger flat-screen TV would be cool, remember this photo.

6: Air Pollution

Even the skies are polluted.

“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans”.  Jacques-Yves Cousteau

7: Wildlife Poaching

Poaching and the wildlife trade are devastating animal life all around the world.

“Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals – the same fate awaits them both; as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath”   Ecclesiastes 3:19

8: Food Production

Most of us depend on centralized agriculture – but its premise is flawed. Centrally managed, pesticide-intensive, single crops designed to be transported, replace locally-adapted forms of agriculture.

These Spanish greenhouses allow us to eat food out of season. It is refrigerated and flown all over the world,  contributing to climate change.

9: Getting the Last Drop

(Do you think they could squeeze any more drills in there?).

“I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress”  Ed Begley, Jr.

10: Consumerism

It’s really sad. There are so many people who want to bring an end to poverty in the developing world. Yet many organizations that claim to help, simply export their concepts of fossil fuel dependency and the same unsustainable economic model that fuels our over-consumption.

We live on a finite planet. We simply can’t afford consumerism.

It’s lousy for our well-being and health, as well as for our environment.

11: Waste

The more we consume, the more waste we generate.

We are on a finite planet – we throw things away, but there is no “away”.

12: Climate Change

Human-caused climate change is having a devastating affect all over the world, with increased risks of flooding, drought, wildfires, storms and more.

Related: Thank individuals can’t do anything about climate change? Think again – click here

13 Fossil Fuels

This is what happens when profit comes before the environment.  This part of Alberta used to be forest and fen. Now it’s a toxic wasteland.

Nowhere on Earth is more earth being moved these days than in the Athabasca Valley.

Tar Sands in a nutshell:  First, the forest is “removed”. Then all the peat and soil / dirt on the surface is removed. Then the tar sands are removed.  The bitumen is then stripped from the sand and treated. Finally, contaminated water is discharged into tailings ponds

14: Deforestation

The reasons for deforestation vary – logging, planting agricultural crops, producing palm oil for the fast food industry…..

But the effect is the same.

Loss of habitat for countless animal, insect and bird species, erosion and soil depletion, and increased carbon emissions causing climate change.

15 Energy

It might look lovely. But just how much energy does it use?

This is replicated in big cities across the globe – the energy cost is enormous.

And most of that energy currently comes from fossil fuels.

16: Lignite (Coal) Power

Most energy in the US is currently produced by coal-powered plants. Coal is a heavily-polluting fossil fuel which is bad for the environment and for our health.

Please Share!

Even now, not everyone is aware of the horrific impact our daily lives have on the environment. Our energy use (for our transport, all our electronics and our comfort), our demand for convenience (fast food, single-use disposables), our food (out-of-season food, increased meat consumption, food waste and factory farming), all of these contribute to the destruction of our environment.

So please raise awareness and share these dramatic photos – Sharing buttons below and right – thank you!