Environmental Threats Essay Example For Students

Environmental Threats Essay Contemporary IssuesEnvironmental threatsOverpopulationEvery 20 minutes, the world adds another 3,500 human lives but loses one or more entire species of animal or plant life at least 27,000 species per year. ZGP July 1999 World population growth peaked at about two percent per year in the early 1960s. Latest population figures indicate that the rate of growth has slowed to 1.33 percent annually, equivalent to 78 million people a year. UNFPA 1999 The highest world population growth rate was 2.04 percent in the late 1960s. This year, it is about 1.31 percent. NY Times World population growth is equivalent to around three babies every second. UNFPA 99 New inhabitants add the equivalent of a city the size of San Francisco to world population every three dayThe world population is growing fast and the effects of this are #61623; food shortages #61623; exhaustion of farm land and soil erosion#61623; insufficient power supplies#61623; social un-rest and war #61623; immense pressure on welf are system and national benefits#61623; crime due to lack of space and jobs The world in the future will be able to support less NOT more people this is due to carefully farmed areas losing there top-soil (the cause is over farming), but the world needs more and not less food so larger fields are required but these large fields allow soil and wind erosion to happen more quickly. Fertilisers only speed up this erosion e.g. America (Arizona) land is useless and dusty because of the chemicals poisoning the land. Also in places such as Egypt where the water supply is irrigated from underground water supplies, the water contains mineral salts, which will slowly poison the land. We can say that overpopulation can effect the police in a dramatic way, as the ratio between a police officer and the public is increasing. This can effect the police officers productivity and effectiveness in dealing with crime. We can say that Public services in general are under-funded, this in part can be blamed on the amount of people not paying tax (asylum seekers, unemployed, O.A.Ps). I.e. as science grows so do length of years people live as dose the funding which is required to keep these people (pension, benefits) which could be spent on Public services. The Police Federations research found:London has 25,121 officers, one for every 290 citizens, New York has 45,535 one for every 161 citizens. Berlin has 27,298 police officers one for every 124 of the citys population. Sheffield, with a population of more than 500,000, has 972 officers, one per 545 citizens. In Greater Manchester there are 6,851 officers, one for every 376 citizens. Citizens per police officer: Berlin: 12 4 New York: 161 London: 290 Manchester: 376 Sheffield: 545At the end of September 2000, there were 124,614 police officers in England and Wales. Although this was a 0.4% increase on six months earlier, there were still about 2,500 fewer police officers than when Labour came to power in 1997. In 1999, after sticking to two years of Conservative spending plans, the government pledged to fund additional 5,000 officers on top of normal recruitment. But while the government says that it has now pledged enough cash to deal with the backlog, officers themselves have spoken of a morale crisis in the nations police stations. Gordon Brown released 24m specifically to boost recruiting. Coupled with the first national advertising campaign for the police launched in August 2000 this extra cash has seen the downturn in recruiting halted. Millions of pounds are being wasted on ineffective training for police officersThe total annual cost of training the 200,000 police service staff by the 43 for ces and seven National Police Training centres in England and Wales is up to 400m. The Chartered Institute of Public Finances ; Accountancy (CIPFA) claims that the cost of training is 88 per day per police officer. Observation of the Early Childhood EssayGenetic ModificationIndividual characteristics of plants, such as the height to which wheat grows or the colour of petals, are determined by their genes. These characteristics, or traits, are inherited from generation to generation. Genetic modification (GM) involves copying the genes, which govern a particular characteristic from one organism, and transferring them to another. With conventional breeding, traits can only be transferred between plants or animals of the same or closely related species. GM enables traits to be transferred between different species, and potentially even between animals and plants. For example, Bt maize has been genetically modified to make it produce a protein from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. This protein kills the corn borer insect, which, in other countries, is a major threat to maize crops. It is claimed, growing these GM crops can reduce usage of insecticides and herbicides. Other traits, which could be introduced to crops using GM technology, include disease resistance, improved nutritional value and the ability to survive in drought, flood or frost conditions. GM crops are widely grown in the rest of the world. In 1998 approximately 27 million hectares of GM crops were grown worldwide (excluding China); three quarters in the US. The other major growers are Argentina, Canada and China and significant expansion is imminent in Mexico and South Africa. GM crops are now being grown either in field trials or on a commercial scale in over 40 countries including Nicaragua, Honduras, Swaziland and Vietnam. In Europe commercial growing of GM Bt maize is already underway in Spain, France and Germany. Although GM crops are not grown commercially in the UK, ingredients from GM soya and GM maize crops have reached the market here. They come from the US, as does the tomato puree made from GM tomatoes. GM riots effects the police as recently there have been new fear over these crops, we have also seen the destruction of the farmland, which contains these crops. The pubic service sector could see a rise to a super bug, if this happens then the NHS could be swamped and unable to cope. Tony Blair has acknowledged that genetically modified foods could be a health risk in a newspaper article, Blair said, he recognised that there was legitimate public concern over GM foods, both in terms of human safety and for the environment. Genetically modified food (GM) is a new way of producing foods by taking DNA from one species and inserting it into another. There has been no long-term safety tests carried out and at times safety advice has been over-ruled. The health effects of eating GM foods are unknown The British Medical Association believes that any conclusion upon the safety of introducing genetically modified materials into the UK is premature, as there is insufficient evidence to infor m the decision-making process at present.There are concerned that consumption of the maize will lead to an increased resistance to antibiotics in human and animal populations. The testing carried out on GM foods is inadequate. Quite often the testing is carried out by the companies themselves that seek to benefit financially from the product. Releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment represents genetic pollution. There are long held concerns about the transfer from genetically engineered crop plants to wild relatives to create superweeds, which could out-compete and disrupt the natural biodiversity of an area. Many GM crops are also able to crossbreed with neighbouring crops. Government research concluded that crossbreeding would be inevitable. Critics argue that we do not know enough about the way genes operate and interact to be sure of what the outcome of any modification will be. They worry that the alterations could accidentally lead to substances that are p oisonous or trigger allergies.