Critical discussion, reflection, application: the anthropogenic nature of environmental problems and with examples from the SA context.

Our Mother earth is presently facing plenty of environmental concerns. These situation issue like global warming, acid rain, ozone depletion, destruction of natural habitats, a decline in freshwater, the adverse effects on marine life and more feeling every human, animal and nation on this planet. Over the last few decades this mistreatment of our planet and degradation of our surroundings have started up in the alarming pace. As our activities have been not in our favor of protecting the planet, we have seen physical calamities hitting us more frequently in the shape of instant floods, tsunamis and cyclones.

The environmental issues faced are ozone depletion which is a layer of the ozone that exists in the stratosphere that absorbs between 97% and 99% of the suns ultraviolent light. The ozone layer now has a hole which is expanding and soon enough the suns rays will be damaging our bodies. Secondly we have the destruction of natural habitats such as forests, wetlands and coral reefs that are often being destroyed across the globe. The loss of forest leads to other problems for humans, including a diminished supply of timber and of other raw material. The decline in fresh water is a concerning issue as less developed countries in the world that are most likely to experience this.

One example of an environmental issue in SA is the water crisis in the Western Cape in 2017 and 2018 which is still ongoing to this day but with slightly higher levels in dams. Another issue is that of air pollution, as it is a source of many of the environmental issues present such as climate change. The process of a slowly dying planet can be sourced through one of the biggest problems of deforestation since it leads to loss of oxygen, more creation and consumption of goods and more people occupying less available land.