Introduction
To carry out a reflexive study of the nature and causes of environmental problems, it is necessary that there be an environmental education aimed at describing the environment and environmental systems where the greatest sources of environmental problems are developed. Once the environmental environment has been evaluated, it is also necessary to provide information about the basic causes of the disturbances that affect the environment. If we also inquire about the scientific knowledge that is necessary to understand the origin of environmental problems, we can be in the capacity of understand them and be able to quantify them, and in this way give a solution that helps to minimize or in the best of cases to eradicate that set of problems that may be affecting our environment.
For all the above mentioned I want to present this publication where I will highlight and describe the most outstanding aspects that can help us find the origin and cause of the most common environmental problems, of course, it is necessary to also describe a set of definitions that are the basis for the understanding in the development of the article.
Some important definitions
Environment: We can conceptualize the environment as the physical and biotic habitat that surrounds us, what we can see, hear, smell and taste. In conclusion the environment is that environment with physical capabilities full of matter that generates life, therefore as it has the ability to contain us we can appreciate it in all its splendor, that is why it is important to understand its forms of study and understanding.
System: We can understand as a system that unit or set that has the capacity to form an organic whole, we can exemplify the following elements as a system:
- Solar system.
- Irrigation system.
- Supply system.
- The planet earth or even the universe itself represent a system.
Pollution: The term pollution can be conceptualized as the set of changes that air, water and soil suffer, these changes occur within physical, chemical or biological characteristics. These changes in turn can adversely affect the health, survival and normal development of humans and other living organisms in their most common activities. With this concept we can give special importance to the chemical and biological study of the different elements that make up the ecosystem, since by means of a physical, chemical and biological study we can diagnose how deviant the original conditions are in their composition of water, soil and air. our environment, and in this way we can know if we are really in the presence of contamination.
A short reflection about the amplitude of the study of the environment
When we consider as an objective to improve the environmental quality, we must increase the possibilities for the human being to have high levels of wellbeing, that is why the environment must include all kinds of social, economic and cultural aspects in the environment. This type of amplitude that should be given to the environment, in many cases is unmanageable only if we want to study it through a course on environmental matters, so it is advisable to expand by various means everything related to the environment and its limitations by own definitions, in conclusion we must expand all the elements of the environment that must be above a simple definition.
Public domain image source, wikimedia commons
Interaction between systems
The different environmental systems that make up our land can interact with each other, in many cases that interaction is executed favorably, mainly if those interacting systems are not altered by the industrialized activity that the human being executes within the environments of those systems in interaction, while under other conditions these interactions occur unfavorably, since they are exposed to the intervention of activities of industrial use.
If a classification is made within the different environmental systems that make up our planet, it can help us to understand certain problems that occur in the interaction between these systems, for this it is necessary to consider that air, water and soil contamination should be be managed with a provision in the collection of water supplies, disposal of wastewater and solid waste must be separated in their uses and management, so this classification may be more reasonable.
Unfortunately, not all the problems that our environment presents are attacked under a systematic approach, that is, they are not linked to a system, but rather they involve negative interactions between them. A clear example of interaction between systems negatively is acid rain. To generalize the way in which systems interact within our planet, I present the following scheme, which shows the interaction between water-air-earth:
Public awareness and the changing role of technology in environmental problems
The economic problems presented today in many industrialized countries, in my opinion, is due to the decline of our environment, as agricultural and livestock production is no longer the same considering that our environment is contaminated. That is why the common citizenship and the organized people must generate transformative ideas that make real changes so that our economies recover and achieve a sustainable culture, that is to say, to promote production while conserving our ecosystem outside of extreme pollution to the that is submitted at present.
The enormous increases in costs in the generation of energy, as well as the enormous increases in the costs of social assistance and that together with unemployment, have caused enormous financial deficits to the governments of the industrialized world, which has led to the misnamed third world countries follow the path of ecological and social disaster that have been pushed by neoliberal policies, that far from giving a solution to environmental problems have worsened it to the point of seeming an irreversible process, that is why the importance of a so-called to the civic conscience and will of the politicians of the modern world to preserve our environment.
Public domain image source, wikimedia commons
In spite of all these negative aspects, we find that different technologies have been developed to solve the pollution problems of our ecosystem. However, I am one of the people who believe that technology should be useful among many things in order to achieve a development sustained in the production and distribution of goods and natural resources, that is, to exploit our natural resources but always maintaining a balance where our future generations can continue to maintain the same levels of production without contaminating the environment.
Conclusion and final considerations
Any environmentalist wanting to learn and bring all their knowledge in favor of environmental improvement should know that it is not enough to understand the causes and effects of environmental problems in descriptive terms, that is, there is a scientific need to be able to quantify these problems and take them to a statistical field where pollution problems and other characteristics are expressed in a quantitative way and in this way find the most convenient solution. This way of studying and attacking environmental problems is of great need since there are environmental processes that are very complex, an example of this complexity is the need to analyze many of these environmental problems by carrying out a feasible study of a balance of materials where diverse energy processes for each component of the analyzed system, which can lead to a solution of the problem in a total system.
The environmental study is a fascinating mixture of promulgating environmental education that generates awareness, but at the same time we need environmentally-conscious scientists, where avant-garde technologies are put into practice in favor of environmental solutions. In later publications I will be explaining the different material balances that will help us quantify the energy that gives balance between the different interactions between the systems that make up our environment.
Reference consulted
- Environmental engineering. Author: J. Glynn Henry and Gary W. Heinke. Second edition. Pearson Editorial. Mexico 1999.