Text8. Earth is still our home. Tuesday, March 31, 2009 /www.Ecological-problems

There is no doubt that current condition of our planet definitely belongs under “global ecological crisis” category. We made tremendous environmental mess over the years, and as always things need to become critical before we start fixing them. Mother Earth is down on her knees not able to defend herself from so many different ecological problems. By helping our planet we are helping ourselves because Earth is still our only home.

We seem to be constantly forgetting how Earth existed many years before us, and how Earth can exist without us. We, on the other hand cannot exist without Earth because Earth is so far the only planet capable to support life. We should stop taking things for granted, and accept the fact that we are not supreme rulers of our planet. Ecology, environment, and general health of our planet have been on sidelines all the time, not able to compete with the greed for an almighty dollar as the ultimate goal of our civilization. People are greedy, they think only of material goods, and almighty dollar is always ahead of everything else. Just take a look at how world leaders instantly jumped to solve financial crisis and global recession. Billions and billions of dollars given in such a short time to save financial markets, if only small percentage of this money was used for environmental issues we wouldn’t be now talking about global ecological crisis. On the other hand international climate deal, a must thing to avoid ultimate environmental disaster in years to come is still in question, still depending on politics to decide whether this is top priority or not. Can you imagine this? With so many different ecological problems politicians are still discussing whether environmental issues like climate change are top priorities or not, and whether we still have time to postpone work on their solutions. Time may sound endless from general point of view but global ecological crisis should have given us by now the real proof that time is one luxury we do not have at our disposal. Global ecological crisis will soon turn into global ecological disaster if we continue with our ignorance towards reality we live in. Since we became dominant species on this planet we have done so many bad things. It would really be nice to do something good for a change.

Define the words «weather» and « climate». Write down your definitions.

Water is necessary for survival of all life in our planet.

Water resources - What can we do? Sunday, February 10, 2008/ www.Ecological-problems

Water is necessary for survival of all life in our planet. As the human population increases so does demand for water and that is the main reason why global freshwater use grew rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century and this is the big problem since there are already water shortages in many parts of the world. This problem will be even bigger in years to come especially considering the further growth of population and water could become rare and priceless. There are many uses of water: agricultural, industrial, households, recreational and there’s only 2,5 % fresh water on Earth, while the remaining percentage of 97,5 % is salty water. However of this 2,5 %, two thirds are frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. Fresh water is a renewable source, but unfortunately world’s supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing and in many parts of the world demand greatly exceeds supply. Almost 70 % of world water is used for irrigation since as the population grows there is also increased demand for food supply which can’t be done without water. Industry and households each share about 15 % of world water use and by some calculations average household needs about 50 liters of water per day (without water for garden). There’s also significant water pollution in many parts of the world that makes already rare water resources unusable creating additional problem to already limited fresh water resources. Many people depend on rivers and lakes that are becoming dry and overexploited because of increased water demand. Without water there’s no life so there are really only two things we could do; slow the world population growth and use water resources more efficiently and wisely. Since slowing population growth is almost impossible in some areas, all we’re really left with is more efficient use of water and preservation of current non polluted water resources and that is really something we all can do.