To the children of this Earth So that they will never forget its beauty J P To Lucie so that she may live in a better world To Chantal for her immense support during the creation of this book Y D
Contents What Exactly Is the Environment 4 1 Water 6 Where Is the Earth’s Water 6 Oceans 8 Threats to the Ocean 10 Fresh Water 12 Threats to Our Fresh Water 13 Water in Our Bodies 16 2 Air 18 What Is Air 18 Why Do We Need Air 19 The Atmosphere 20 Wind 22 Threats to Air Quality 24 Effects of Air Pollution 26 3 Soil 28 What Is Soil 29 How Soil Is Formed 30 The Role of Soil 32 Threats to Soil 33 4 Energy 36 Why We Need Energy 37 Where Does Energy Come From 38 The Earth’s Energy Challenges 39 5 Climate 40 What Are Earth’s Climate Zones 42 Influences on the Climate 44 Climate Change 46 Causes of Global Warming 47 Effects of Global Warming 48 The Future 50 Glossary 52 Selected Sources 54 Index 56 Bolded words are defined in the glossary
What Exactly Is THE ENVIRONMENT The environment is everything around us from our homes to our streets neighborhoods cities and countries It’s beaches and forests deserts and oceans It’s the continents we live on it’s our planet Earth When we talk about the environment we are usually talking about how healthy or unhealthy our planet is Our environment includes five essential elements Water Air Soil Energy Climate
Our environment is constantly being changed by the organisms that live here We humans for example have always tried to improve the conditions we live in And every change has had an impact on our environment For a long time these changes took place slowly and nobody worried much about the environment But then came the industrial revolution People began to build factories to make all the things they wanted And while industrialization led to rapid changes in science and technology these factories needed energy to run Industries and factories have grown and new communication technologies have emerged There are also more people in the world and more of us are living in cities We need more food and bigger farms to produce it Today the entire planet is facing the consequences of these changes The pollution we’ve generated is contaminating the environment and contributing to climate change That results in rising temperatures and more extreme weather events around the world more storms more droughts more floods Protecting our environment keeping our planet healthy is an urgent matter But first we must know the environment and understand how our way of life has changed it for good and bad This will help us take the actions needed for the future health of our planet
