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Discuss the environmental problems Britain is facing today. Is it the Government’s responsibility or the individual to solve these problems? ENVIRONMENT Every country has many different problems which they are facing today or have been facing for a long time. In this essay, the environmental problems, which Britain is facing nowadays, are going to be discussed in some ways. Mostly, discussion about the climatic changes is going to be mentioned that is not only in Britain, also the biggest problem in all over the Earth today together with impacts of these changes. After that, Recycling is going to be argued in detail with its examples.
Changing in climate affects the environment deeply. Climatic changes appear because of Greenhouse Effect that is mostly caused by human activities and is going to be explained later on. According to the UKCIP website[? ] together with human causes, nature causes are also an effect in climate change. The effect is the co-action between the ocean and atmosphere, instability in the amount of energies received from solar rays coming from sun and volcanic eruptions, and the alteration in the Earth’s orbit. Recycling is the biggest problem after climate change in the UK.
Environmental Protection Agency[? ] defines Recycling as “Recycling is a series of activities that includes collecting recyclable materials that would otherwise be considered waste, sorting and processing recyclables into raw materials such as fibres, and manufacturing raw materials into new products. ” Moreover, government’s and individuals responsibilities are going to be stated in solving these problems. Firstly, in this part of the essay, Greenhouse Effect is going to be explained and then with a little help from the BBC website, discussion about how the UK’s climate is changing will be made.
According to the BBC climate[? ] website, climate change occurs mainly because of Greenhouse Effect which is the collection of greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere that are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, water vapour and halocarbons. These gases absorb solar rays from the sun, which are not absorbed by the atmosphere, and heat up the Earth. This heating up rises due to the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases. Rise in the amount happens because of human activity such as deforestation, the fuel used in cars and the machinery or the smoke coming from factory chimneys.
The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. The UK’s climatic change was quite obvious as a result a department called UK Climate Impacts Programme was established in 1997. Their duty is to inform organisations how the climatic changes might affect and warns them to be ready for any difficulties they might face with. There is some evidence that prove this alteration. According to the UKCIP report (April 2002)[? ], the evidence showed that the most obvious changes in climate was in the last century. 1990s were the warmest 10 years in that time in central England since 1660.
The general temperature rose about 1 Celsius in 20th century, even the growing time for the crops has changed since 1900s, summers became hotter and winters became wetter since 200 years in all regions of the UK and the sea levels have risen up about 10 cm since the year 1900. We can use Environmental Change Networks data[? ] to give an example of how the regions became hotter and wetter from one year to another. We can look at rainfall data for the region Snowdon in Gwynedd in Wales. The winter rain for the year 1996 is measured as 543. 1mm and annual rain 2359. 8mm.
In the same region in year 2005 winter rain is measured as 1184. 3mm and the annual rain is measured as 3757. 85mm. This proves that the winters are becoming wetter throughout the years. In the year 1997, the average temperature for the region Snowdon is measured 6. 95 whereas it is measured 8. 02 in year 2005. This also proves that summers are becoming hotter every year. There are some expectations for future in UKCIP02 report[? ] if these negative effects continue to rise. First of all, as it is proved above which the winters become wetter and summers become hotter, it is same for the future.
The UK’s weather keeps being warmer and same as with its winters and summers as they are going to be wetter and milder, hotter and drier. Also, it is proved that storms and sea levels will rise in the future. Moreover, snowfall will decrease throughout the UK. Impacts of these changes are significant in the UK. In Environment Agency’s report[? ], the effects on everything are proved. The effects start with Biodiversity. Salmon migration will continue to have severe problems as they have already lived in 2003 in Southampton Water because of water temperature has reached 23 Celsius with the climatic changes.
Also, low river flows affect them badly. What is more, many species of birds in Britain lay their eggs 17 days before their normal breeding period. The effect on agriculture is huge. There are both positive and negative effects on it. Positive effect could be the new types of farming and harvesting with new types of crops such as sunflowers, sweet corns or Soya in South East. Moreover, harms happened because of frost, will reduce. On the other hand, lack of water for harvesting and farming will occur.
Having too much rain may cause erosion whereas having less water will give rise to soil damage because of drought. Secondly, too much rain causes flooding which is also an open gate to some kinds of diseases such as Malaria. 5 million people are at risk of flooding in the UK. The problems in the future are severe because of flooding. Because of too much rain rivers will overflow causing flooding. There have already been a rise in the sea levels but especially in the year 2080 the Southeast will sink with a 90cm raise in the sea level. Thirdly, impacts on water supplies are important.
High temperatures and low flows may be a suitable place for bacteria and algae to reproduce especially in River Thames. Recycling is another big problem after climate change in the UK. People in the UK are improving their sense in recycling because they have already realized how a bad situation they are found in. Why most of us do not recycle although it is known how useful, is questionable. Some people do not want to understand the meaning of recycling. As it is mentioned in Environment Agency’s report, it is the turning of used materials into new products.
In England and Wales, the amount of recycled is being enhanced every year for instance; in Wales between the years 2002/03 the amount of products being recycled was 1. 79 million tonnes whereas it became 1. 83 million tonnes between the years 2003/04. There are several types of recycling which are compost, paper and card, glass, scrap metals, white goods and plastic. The most recyclable factor was the compost with a percentage of 30 and the least was plastic with a percentage of 2 between the years 2003/04. The rest of the amounts not being recycled are buried into the soil.
In terms of saving energy, recycling is also helpful because the time [? ]need to make a new can is the time which is the same to make 20 recycled cans. The businesses make 59 millions tonnes of waste but only 42% of this amount is recycled. Retail sector only itself makes about 13 millions tonnes but at least more than half of it is being recycled (55. 4%) in the year 2004. Environment Agency stated how the recycling rates can be improved by the Recycle Now campaign. Both the government and society should know how to take care of environment. It is already mentioned in BBC website[? but nowadays, everybody should know how to protect their own environment. Firstly, people should prefer to travel, at least short distances, with bicycles or on foot to prevent excess amount of CO2 coming from exhausts. In order to save energy, double glazing windows and insulated roofs can be used to prevent heating go out so spending less energy to keep your house warm. Instead of bathing long time you can have a quick shower which saves tonnes of water per person in a year. At least everybody should have 5 pots of plants in their homes as means of clearing CO2 caused by them.
Moreover in BBC news, there was news on 30th November 2007 which informs that nowadays in the UK, a global agreement is on the way between 150 firms such as Nokia, Nike, and Tesco to encourage firms to expend more money in low-carbon technologies. British public is sensitive in protecting the environment especially while recycling. But it still does not enough. According to Environment Agency webpage[? ], there is an increase every year in the amount of recycling especially in the amount of household wastes. Government can do limited facts to persuade people in protecting their environment. All the responsibilities depend on society.
Government may improve the way of persuading community with their announcements made on huge panels, advertisements published in newspapers or using famous channels to encourage society to be more sensitive while using too much water or not recycling. In conclusion, the main problems of the environment Britain is facing today are discussed in many ways in this essay. The main reason in the change of climate is mainly the human activities whereas, of course, nature causes some changes. Recycling is a little bit different because it is all our responsibility and it is formed by the people together in good and bad ways.
What remains now is quite clear. Society should take care of environment mostly and government should be aware of the ones who break the rules of environment. Although it is too late to prevent, it is in our power to reduce the harms at least which are not formed yet. [i] http://www. ukcip. org. uk/climate_change/natural_manmade. asp (the time page reviewed 24th November 2007) UK Climate Impacts Programme report April 2002 [ii] http://www. epa. gov/msw/recycle. htm (the time page reviewed 24th November 2007) (U. S environmental protection agency webpage 28th November 2007 last updated date) [iii] http://www. bbc. co. k/climate/evidence/ (the time page reviewed 24th November 2007)( [iv] Climate Change Scenarios For the United Kingdom-Briefing report (April 2002, Margaret Beckket) downloaded from the website and used a means of book. [v] http://www. ecn. ac. uk/CCI/avgtmp_meta. asp? site=SNO http://www. ecn. ac. uk/CCI/precip_meta. asp? site=SNO ( The UK Environmental Change Network website August 2007 last updated) (the time page reviewed 24th November 2007) Susannah Rennie and Mandy Lane) [vi] Climate Change Scenarios For the United Kingdom-Briefing report (April 2002, Margaret Beckket) downloaded from the website and used a means of book vii] http://www. environment-agency. gov. uk/commondata/acrobat/ea_cc_eng. 2_1057452. pdf used as a book(March 2005) published by Environment Agency Rio House, Bristol time the report being read 26th November [viii] http://www. bbc. co. uk/climate/adaptation/jack. shtml (it is a game which tries to teach us how we can help environment by being a little more careful it is made by BBC website) [ix] http://www. environment-agency. gov. uk/yourenv/eff/1190084/resources_waste/213982/203620/ (Environment Agency webpage)(2007) (Author: The Environment Agency)