Environmental Studies in Credo: Threats to the Environment

Contamination of the environment as a result of human activities. The term pollution refers primarily to the fouling of air, water, and land by wastes (see air pollution; water pollution; solid waste). The concept of pollution consists of the inappropriate or undesirable mixing of items or elements that may in themselves be quite appropriate or desirable.

Contamination of the air by noxious gases and minute particles of solid and liquid matter (particulates) in concentrations that endanger health. The major sources of air pollution are transportation engines, power and heat generation, industrial processes, and the burning of solid waste.

Human-created noise harmful to health or welfare.

The radioactive and toxic by-products of the nuclear energy and nuclear weapons industries. Nuclear waste may have an active life of several thousand years.

Oil discharged from an ocean-going tanker, pipeline, or oil installation, often as a result of damage. An oil spill kills shore life, clogging the feathers of birds and suffocating other creatures. At sea, toxic chemicals spread into the water below, poisoning sea life.

Smog (smŏg) [smoke+fog], dense, visible air pollution. Smog is commonly of two types. The gray smog of older industrial cities like London and New York derives from the massive combustion of coal and fuel oil in or near the city, releasing tons of ashes, soot, and sulfur compounds into the air. The brown smog characteristic of Los Angeles and Denver in the late 20th century is caused by automobiles.

Contamination of water resources by harmful wastes; see also sewerage, water supply, pollution, and environmentalism.

Acidic precipitation thought to be caused mainly by the release into the atmosphere of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and oxides of nitrogen.

Increase in average global temperature, amounting to approximately 0.74°C/1.3°F from 1906 to 2005. The gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface and its atmosphere has been attributed to the greenhouse effect.

Destruction of forest for timber, fuel, charcoal burning, and clearing for agriculture and extractive industries, such as mining. From the perspective of global studies, complex human-driven processes of environmental transformation like deforestation are seen in the light of their relationship with concurrent historical processes of global economic, cultural, and social change. Thus, the meaning that forests have to people all over the world today is seen as continually changing in association with 500 years of modernization.

Act of seeking, following, and killing wild animals for consumption or display.

Wearing away and redistribution of the Earth's soil layer.

Town in northern Ukraine, 100 km/62 mi north of Kiev. On April 26, 1986 the unit IV nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Soviet Union caught fire and exploded. An estimated 100 million Ci (⇒ curies) of radioactivity were emitted with up to half deposited within 30 kilometres of the plant.

Section of Niagara Falls, N.Y., that formerly contained a canal that was used as chemical disposal site. In the 1940s and 50s the empty canal was used by a chemical and plastics company to dump nearly 20,000 tons (c.18,000 metric tons) of toxic waste; the waste was sealed in metal drums in a manner that has since been declared illegal.

From The Reader's Companion to American History
An unlikely series of mechanical and human errors in Unit 2 of the nuclear generating plant at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979 resulted in an accident that profoundly affected the utility industry.