Nowadays the world is facing crucial environmental problems. Air and water pollution, deforestation and climate change are urgent issues to solve.
Nature is God's gift. We need to preserve it for the benefits of our future life, so it is up to us to intervene as soon as possible.
The major problems concern:
• Air pollution, due to the precence of a massive percentage of poisonous substances, such as gases, particles and biological molecules in Earth's atmosphere;
• Light pollution, due to the excessive presence of antrophogenic light in night environment, caused by misdirected or intrusive uses of light;
• Noise pollution, which includes roadway noise, aircraft noise, industrial noise and high-intensity sonar;
• Plastic pollution, which concerns the accumulation of plastic products and microplastics in the environment;
• Soil contamination, resulting from 20th century activities in atomic physics;
• Water pollution, that is the contamination of water bodies, as a result of human activities.
All these types of pollution have a serious impact on human life.
An October 2017 study by the "Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health" found that global pollution (in particular toxic air, water, soil and workplace) kills nine million people annually, which is triple the number of deaths caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, and 15 times higher than the deaths caused by wars and other forms of human violence.
Although the solution to environmental problems seems hard to be definitely resolved, everyone can do something to improve the situation. For example we can either avoid throwing plastic, paper and cigarettes onto ground or we can use bicycles, public transport or walk instead of going by car or by moped. These are very easy things that everyone, even children, can do without difficulty.
All governments have to carry out profitable policies to face future challenges but real changes can happen only when people act responsibly.
Unless we restore the ecological balance right now, the consequences will be catastrophic.
By Sara Pelliccia, Federico Cimaglia, Sara Passeri and Filippo Amerio