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Pollution has widespread consequences on human and environmental health, having systematic impact on social and economic systems. In 2019, pollution killed approximately nine million people worldwide (about one in six deaths that year); about three-quarters of these deaths were caused by air pollution.
Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. [156] Point sources have one identifiable cause, such as a storm drain, a wastewater treatment plant, or an oil spill. Non-point sources are more diffuse. An example is agricultural runoff. [157] Pollution is the result of the cumulative effect over time.
Another approach is water privatization; despite its economic and cultural effects, service quality and overall quality of the water can be more easily controlled and distributed. Rationality and sustainability is appropriate, and requires limits to overexploitation and pollution and efforts in conservation. [25]
Environmental economic regulations find the cheapest emission abatement efforts first, and then move on to the more expensive methods. E.g. as said earlier, trading, in the quota system, means a firm only abates pollution if doing so would cost less than paying someone else to make the same reduction.
Light pollution, the term for the brightening of the night sky by unnatural lights, is increasing worldwide. On average, skies are getting 10% brighter each year globally, with the fastest rate of ...
The consequences of the Ok Tedi environmental disaster illustrate the potential negative effects from the exploitation of natural resources. The resulting mining pollution includes toxic contamination of the natural water supply for communities along the Ok Tedi River , causing widespread killing of aquatic life.
Levels of air pollution rose during the Industrial Revolution, sparking the first modern environmental laws to be passed in the mid-19th century. The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create ...
Other environmental effects of transport systems include traffic congestion and automobile-oriented urban sprawl, which can consume natural habitat and agricultural lands. By reducing transportation emissions globally, it is predicted that there will be significant positive effects on Earth's air quality, acid rain, smog and climate change. [10]