Biological Diversity And Its Effects On Our Environment

Humanity has proven ourselves to be capable of incredible feats, some which may benefit the lives of our communities, our industry, and our understanding of the world as we know it. Others can bring great harm to ourselves or to the planet that we live on. There comes a time when we must recognize how we impact our surroundings, and to ask ourselves how far we are willing to go. Choices that we have made as a species have put the lives of some of Earth s most ancient and diverse communities in danger. While only a small fraction of the creatures living under the sea have been discovered and recorded, the past half a century has shown us the our mistreatment of our environment has threatened the intricate systems of the ocean s†¦show more content†¦This is currently one of the most quickly changing factors which is destroying the biodiversity of our oceans, which is why it is vital that we recognize it. In order to further define ocean acidification, what it means to biodiversity, and how we can solve it, we must first explore it s causes. With humanity s growing need for faster, automatic, and more efficient tools and systems, it becomes visible that these short term solutions can result in long term problems. During the Industrial Revolution which spread around the world, the mindset that the planet s resources are ours for the harvesting was largely accepted. Without proper knowledge of the long term effects of taking materials from the planet, dumping unsanitized and toxic chemical mixtures into bodies of water, among other things humanity as a whole failed to preserve ecosystems of every kind. The result was the use of resources despite the effect it had on wildlife communities and ecosystems, as well as a lack of regulation which would soon cause problems for the government, corporations, individuals, and the planet. In 2007, CNN reported that â€Å"up to 500 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge slip into the global water supply every year. In the developing world [according to UNESCO] as much as 70 percent of industrial