por What are anthropic activities?
The anthropic activities are those inherent to human beings that can affect the cycles and balance of nature. Many of these activities, due to their magnitude, can cause great alterations, putting at risk the existence of various organisms on the planet, including that of the human being himself.
Historically, the magnitude of the impact of human activities on the environment has accelerated since the end of the 18th century, with the so-called Industrial Revolution. In recent decades, our impact on ecosystems has increased in such a way that some specialists have called the present epoch of the planet the Anthropocene.
Main anthropic activities that affect the environment
The main anthropogenic activities that degrade the environment are associated with the industrial production of products, goods and services intended to satisfy the demands of a growing population, with unsustainable consumption patterns.
The activities for the production of goods and services require increasing amounts of energy, water and various raw materials, which exceed the limits of the planet.
Generation and consumption of energy
The generation of energy to satisfy anthropic systems includes activities related to the capture of primary energy, the conversion into derived energy (electricity and thermal) and its final use.
Three primary energy sources considered renewable are the kinetic energy of the air (wind), the kinetic energy of water (hydric) and the energy from solar radiation.
However, the main source of energy today is still fossil fuels (natural gas, oil and coal). More than 85% of the energy consumed in the world comes from fossil fuels.
Another non-renewable energy source with a high risk of contamination currently used is the nuclear fission of chemical elements, such as plutonium or uranium.
The current model of energy consumption is unsustainable. Fossil energy, coming from the biomass of dead organisms accumulated for thousands of years in sedimentary basins, is highly polluting of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
Agriculture and agribusiness
Crops, whether intended to produce food for direct human consumption, for animal feed (livestock and aquaculture), or for the production of other products other than food, generate a high impact on ecosystems.
Since the emergence of the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century, agricultural activity has become an activity with a high ecological impact.
Industrialized agriculture requires the massive use of pesticides (fertilizers and biocides). Likewise, it has a high demand for fossil fuels for machinery for planting, harvesting, transporting, processing and storing production.
On the other hand, they require significant deforestation of land.
The irrational use of resources in urban centers
Cities and their urban developments involve complex interactions with the environment. Home to half the world’s population, cities consume two-thirds of global energy and produce 70% of global carbon emissions.
The big cities, especially in the so-called developed countries, have the highest rates of consumption and waste generation on the planet.
Likewise, large urban centers are characterized by their high demand for drinking water and the consequent generation of wastewater.
Transport
This component involves both human mobilization and the transportation of materials for the production, distribution, and trade of food and other goods and services.
Transportation vehicles, driven mainly by fossil energy, in addition to the pollutants typical of combustion, involve a wide range of pollutants, such as lubricants, catalysts, among others, with a high environmental impact.
Thus, water, land and air transport manages to contaminate the soil, air, rivers and seas.
Mining
The extraction of mining resources, either as a source of energy, or as a source of raw materials for an increasingly demanding technology industry, is a highly polluting activity that impacts the environment.
In order to extract the elements of interest from the environment, highly toxic chemicals are used, such as mercury, cyanide, arsenic, sulfuric acid, among others. These are generally used in the open air and discharged into the riverbeds and aquifers.
Wars and the war industry
Unfortunately, among the most polluting factors on the planet is one of humanity’s great problems: war and the associated war industry.
The action of the explosives not only causes the death of the flora and fauna, it also destroys the soil, which takes hundreds and even thousands of years to regenerate. They also cause fires and contaminate surface and groundwater.
The attack on strategic objectives, in numerous wars, has caused the burning of plastic factories and other synthetic products with the consequent release of highly polluting gases.
Likewise, oil extraction wells have been bombed, generating catastrophic spills that contaminate the waters and exterminate biodiversity.
Gases and other pollutants released
gases
The different anthropic activities produce pollutants that include chlorofluorocarbon gases, reactive gases and greenhouse gases.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are gases used in refrigeration chains, known as ozone depleters.
The reactive gases are nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and volatile organic compounds. Also aerosols and solid or liquid particles, such as nitrates and sulfates.
Greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and tropospheric ozone.
Heavy metals, metalloids and other chemical compounds
The main heavy metals are mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper and arsenic, which are highly toxic. Other lighter metals, such as aluminum and beryllium, are also highly polluting.
Non-metallic elements, such as selenium, are contaminants from spills from mining or industrial activities.
Metalloids such as arsenic and antimony, from the application of pesticides and urban and industrial wastewater, are an important source of water pollution.
Agricultural and livestock products
Biocides (herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides and acaricides) and fertilizers are highly toxic and polluting. Chlorinated pesticides and nitrogenous and phosphorous fertilizers stand out.
Likewise, the unmanaged excreta of farm animals are organic residues with the capacity to ferment (slurry), highly polluting sources of surface running water.
effects
The effect of gases in the atmosphere can be of three types, each with its consequences:
destruction of the components that protect living beings, such as the ozone layer,
emissions of elements directly harmful to health,
emissions of elements that alter the climate.
The ozone layer is capable of absorbing a significant percentage of ultraviolet radiation. Its loss increases the radiation that reaches the earth’s surface, with its corresponding consequences in the generation of cancer in humans.
The concentration of high amounts of harmful elements, such as particles and toxic molecules, cause respiratory diseases, allergies, skin conditions, lung cancer, among others.
For their part, the so-called greenhouse gases under natural conditions prevent the output of infrared radiation into space. Significant increases in these gases, such as those that have occurred since the Industrial Revolution (where CO₂ has suffered an increase close to 40%, methane more than 150% and nitrous oxide close to 20%), have resulted in drastic increases of the temperature that compromise life on the planet.
other effects
Pesticides affect human health and biological diversity. In humans they produce innumerable affections; genetic malformations, cancer, respiratory diseases, among others.
Inorganic nitrogen pollution causes the acidification of rivers and lakes, eutrophication of fresh and marine waters, and the direct toxicity of nitrogenous compounds to humans and aquatic animals, among others.
For their part, heavy metals from mining and various industrial activities can cause innumerable diseases in humans and animals, many of them still unknown and emerging, including neurological disorders and genetic mutations.
References
European Environment Agency. Fluorinated greenhouse gases. Report 21.
United Nations Environment Programme. GEO 5: Global environmental Outlook.