Our Environmental Impact - Earth Day 2021
- Keira Lai
- Apr 22, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 13, 2021

This year, I wrote a short article for my school's newspaper about the many environmental issues that face our world today. The article had to be shortened for the print version, but I decided to post the full article here!
Special thanks to my mom, who helped me by making a ton of suggestions!
Earth Day has been celebrated every April since its inception in 1970, and every passing year our need to protect our environment becomes more and more evident. Climate change and increased carbon dioxide levels have been increasing the Greenhouse Effect and slowly deteriorating our natural environment, bringing destructive raging storms, blazing heat waves, and raising ocean acidification levels. Millions of tons of plastic and waste products end up in our oceans, and human-created habitat loss is causing mass extinctions and minimization of biodiversity. The members of the Environment Club try to target remedies at both the individual and group level, through education, awareness, lifestyle modification, and environmental rehabilitation.
So, what are some of the most prominent environmental issues in our world today?
Littering
How often do you walk down the street and see garbage lying around? Garbage doesn’t belong in nature, yet we see it almost everywhere in urban areas, and even in places far away from where people live. We’re constantly having to make new purchases, so creating more waste is inevitable, but there are many ways to reduce the waste that ends up in the environment, or reduce the amount of waste we produce in general. If you’re able to, try and purchase items in recyclable or compostable packaging. Support any local businesses you come across using greener alternatives for packaging. Try to use reusable containers and utensils when eating or drinking food. But most importantly, ensure that whatever packaging you come across actually ends up in its place.
Climate Change
Perhaps one of the most prominent and most talked-about environmental issues, climate change, threatens to change the natural world as we know it, due to the human activities that cause it. The causes of climate change are complex but one of the prime factors is the overproduction of greenhouse gases which trap and hold heat in the atmosphere. In North America the top three sources of greenhouse gases are the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat, agriculture and food waste, and the burning of fuels for transportation.
Climate change appears in many forms that are directly visible to us. It causes an increase in heat waves and droughts in some areas, and more powerful, destructive rainfall and snowstorms in others. All of this is related to the increase in the Earth’s average temperature over many years. The changes in average temperature may seem small, but when considering the average temperature of the entire planet, those small changes can have huge implications. Remember, climate change is something that happens over a long period of time, so its effects might not seem as obvious in our daily lives.
Just as our lifestyles have changed dramatically in the past three generations, our rising awareness can lead us to design better insulated homes and more efficient appliances so that we are less energy dependent. We can turn to alternative methods of electricity production such as solar, wind, water or geothermal. As we reduce our food waste, less carbon material will end up in landfills. Transportation alternatives, such as electric vehicles, can lessen the impact of fossil fuels. These alternatives are not static and are subject to continuing research and improvement, for which we can all play a part.
Ocean Acidification
The excess release of carbon dioxide does more than just add to the greenhouse gases warming up the planet. Increased CO2 levels means an increase in ocean acidification as well. Carbon dioxide reacts with the water in the ocean, and through this chemical reaction, produces high levels of carbonic acid in the ocean. While this process works to slightly slow the rate of climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide from the air, it has a great negative impact on marine life. This excess acid directly affects coral reef habitats and the creatures that live in the sea. For many creatures, such as molluscs and corals, this increased ocean acidification causes their shells and skeletons to dissolve over time. A visible example of this is the slow destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. Ocean acidification is one of the harmful processes that has been weakening the coral and preventing it from growing and thriving, thus causing permanent damage to the ecosystem that crucially depends on it. By reducing CO2 emissions, the large-scale benefits to the environment could be twofold: we can slow down global warming, AND slow down ocean acidification as well.
Pollution
Pollution comes in many forms, ranging from air pollution to ocean pollution. Some cities are filled with smog that makes the air unbreathable, and other places have rivers with murky, undrinkable water due to the pollutants that have been allowed to flow into there. Littering contributes to pollution as well. Many of you may have heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of human garbage in the ocean that has been pushed together by the currents. Next time we are at the beach, let’s try to remove some of the debris that is so pervasive so that it doesn’t float back out to sea.
Habitat Loss
The destruction of natural habitat is one of the most direct ways people are affecting the planet. In many places (e.g. Indonesia and the Amazon rainforest), natural rainforest is cut down or burned to create more space for food production. The demand created by the mass consumerism of people is forcing us to encroach on and destroy precious natural land, and limiting the biodiversity on the planet. It’s putting a tremendous strain on natural ecosystems. Can we find ways to bring value to the natural habitat versus burning it down? What human motivations are driving the destruction? Advocacy at the consumer, industrial and political level will be needed and we can’t participate without becoming knowledgeable.
These are just a few examples of environmental issues that our world faces today. By learning all you can about environmental issues, and finding ways to help, you too can make a difference. A great way to get involved with environmental issues in the local community is to participate in the FH Environment Club. We plan to have some events this month to celebrate Earth Day, so keep an eye out for any announcements if you’re interested! There are also many events run by the City of Surrey that involved tackling these environmental issues as well! Every little bit that we do can help to change the world, as long as we work together. If helping the environment is everyone’s goal, I believe we can make it happen.
- Keira Lai
Take some time today, on Earth Day, to think about what you can do to help the environment, or what you've already been doing to help. Remember, we can do anything we set our minds to!
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