Environmental issues have been affecting the United States longer than we think. Since the 1960’s, America has been concerned about the environment, especially air and water pollution. Now in 2021, the U.S. is looking at five major environmental issues that are affecting the nation. It’s also important to remember that these issues aren’t just affecting America, but many other countries around the globe.
- Deforestation
The United States’ population grows by almost 2 million people each year. Now if you think about it, these people are going to require an additional acre of land. With the rise of the population each year, deforestation is the result in order to build new homes and businesses. This ends up leading to less and less land for animals and farmland to grow crops.
- Air Pollution
Air pollution has been an issue since the 1960’s like I have said before in the introduction. Although, it has improved over the years, but as for the overpopulated cities it is still a major issue. According to this site, “the top 12 U.S. cities with the most polluted ozone were all located in California.” There is still a lot of room for improvement for the air quality here in the United States, even if our air quality isn’t the worst. 
- Global Warming
Now we have all heard about global warming throughout the world, but what about in the United States. The effects are able to be felt through almost every community in the nation and they aren’t positive. With the wildfires throughout the west coast has contributed to the air pollution, more and more “carbon and particulate matter” are released into the air. Not only is our air affected, but our land as it destroys homes for the animals and places for the crops. Learn more by clicking here.
- Water Pollution
This is another issue we have been facing for a while. Although our drinking water quality is up to par, our lakes, oceans, and rivers face tons of pollution. “On a global scale, people dump two million tons of sewage into waterways every single day.” Think about that for a minute. Two million TONS of sewage into our waterways. These pollutants, such as plastic and metal, can end up harming the marine life within these ecosystems as well. I believe this is one of the issues we could focus more on.
- Natural Resource Depletion
The need for resources will continue to increase as the U.S. population increases. Over the next 10 years, the demand for energy and water resources will grow to 50 percent. Therefore, population is one of the causes, but poor farming techniques are as well. The poor management of the soil is causing the destruction of the soil structure leading to poor plant growth. These aren’t the only causes, but a few. Just keep in mind that we are running through our natural resources too rapidly at this rate.
What can we do?
Now, you must be thinking about the solutions and action steps we can take to help this issue. We can talk about that in the next blog post. In the meantime, be aware of how you are living and see if you can switch to a more eco-friendly way of life. 
Specifically because of this class (and posts and assignments like this one), I have been thinking a lot more about the environment and how people are treating it. It seems as though, if nothing drastically changes, then we are all doomed in the world as we know it now. Certainly, more people need to realize this and start taking actions to change the negative effects that we, as humans, are having on our environment. I look forward to your post about solutions and more actions to take, but for now, great job on this one! Keep up the awareness!
These are some serious global environmental issues that have been discussed for several years. Personally, one of the five environmental issues you discussed in your post that I have researched before and find very interesting is water pollution. Not only does this effect humans and our ability to obtain clean, safe water, it also damages aquatic animals. I love learning about the ocean and sea life, therefore, I think it is very upsetting to learn that we are polluting the water so much that it is killing wildlife and aquatic plants. Hopefully, as technology develops and new scientific data emerges, we can develop an effective method to improve all of these environmental issues.
I’ve always wondered how modern technology can be used to solve these issues. I’d assume by now we have the technology and science available to be able to create a machine that can deal with some, if not all, of these issues. Obviously deforestation and natural resource depletion can’t be solved easily by just creating a machine, but the rest of them seem to have some component that some sort of robot could deal with to some degree. I’m curious to hear about the steps we can do to address these issues and see if there is a machine that can solves these issues.
This was a good summary of environmental issues. I think the style you wrote this post in made it easy to read and come away with a general understanding of each section. I’m looking forward to reading what solutions are presented in your last blog post. Did you compile the list of issues yourself, or were these common ones across multiple sources?
I am so glad you pointed out that these issues are not limited to America, as we all live in the same world and therefore will suffer the same environmental consequences down the line. I hear so often people be indifferent about the environmental pollution in China or India or America (based on where they live) thinking that it is that country’s problem, but in reality, it’s EVERYONE’s problem.
Also, the research I did on an individual level made me even more aware as to how important taking action is, whether it be picking up that plastic bag floating on the road or turning off the tap while you brush your teeth.
I always here about these factors being the key detriments to our earth, but even so, it is still great that you are shedding light on these factors since literally no conspicuous progress is be made to combat these systemic environmental issues…So as long as us humans continue to poison the earth with a selfish hand, a greater advocacy of this issue can only help more and more people at least become aware of our crippling ecosystem as a result of human influence. With this, I really like how you decided to save the solutions to these earthly tragedies for an additional post; so that you can purely emphasize the changes that must be made for the earth’s sake, and for ours.