Enviroment Lab Assignment

Environment

Ashford University for SCI 207

1. What are the three everyday products and practices that contribute most to your environmental footprint?

In our everyday life, we use three products and practices that most contributes to our environmental footprint; we use our car everyday to travel back and forth to work and around town. We utilize heat to keep us warm and electricity to have lights to see. These three products are one of the largest contributors in our life.

2. What impacts might result if everyone in the world enjoyed the same lifestyle? For example, what might the impacts be on.

A) Earth’s climate?

The earth’s climate would be so polluted by the amount of fuel, oil and the natural gases that we use by driving and by overloading the environment with carbon dioxide by accumulating a greenhouse effect. With this in mind, this also would affect the animals, plants and other living things. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have been steadily rising, in 1959, the level of carbon dioxide was approximately 315 ppm the current atmospheric average is approximately 385 ppm (Taub, 2010). If everyone would enjoy my lifestyle, the current projections could rise to 500–1000 ppm by the year 2100.

B) The health of ecosystems and biodiversity?

The ecosystem is changing daily, we can see this through our weather and temperature as it changes throughout the world. As the temperatures gets warmer species move to a cooler habitation or they may even die. The warming of the temperature has also caused changes in the timing of spring and the length of the season. Just recently, we had a tornado warnings and I noticed that they have gotten much stronger and they are coming more frequently and they have been seen in places where no hurricane or tornado has ever been seen.

C) Humanity’s natural resource base and thus economic security?

There will be shortages in water, gas, and energy. We as humans have to do our part by protecting our natural...