Ecosystems and How They Work Essay

Question 1. The industrialization of the United States began after the civil war and started to peak in the after-hours 19th century as capital equipment and tools were developed. This made the rapid performance of more goods for more people possible. This resulted in the expansion of the factory brass allowing people to make a living by manufacturing, commerce, trade or finance. Industrialization, urbanization and immigration caused people to move from the village to the city and together with the influx of foreign immigrants, this led to a dramatic growth in urban population (Faulkner, 1924).The increasing density of industry, transportation and housing had blackball impacts on some(prenominal) the land and the lives of the urban dwellers such that alongside with the innovation came the fuss of pollution in all its forms air, garbage, irrigate and noise. The factories sine qua noned less(prenominal) vari equal to(p) energy output to run the factories thus energy produ ction shifted from the waterwheel to the burning of fogey fuels and fuel oils. At first, the urban industrial centers took pride in black smoke as a attribute of progress and triumph of civilization.With the invention of the automobile and its rise in popularity, their quiver fumes further exacerbated the already noxious emissions from the factories. These led to a mass of respiratory ailments. The problem of garbage came with the increasing population. These accumulated faster than they croup be collected and disposed. Even the horse-drawn carts utilized for the collection contributed to this problem as the equine waste s created both health hazards and back down odors. Then, the industrial effluents and sewage from were polluting the river systems.The public started to become awargon that the environment cannot lodge in limitless amounts of waste. By the 1960s, the threat became too great. During the mid-twentieth century, the focus on environmental concerns was on the cons ervation of resources such as forest, ranges and water which led to the passing game of laws such as the Taylor Grazing set (1934), Soil Conservation Act (1935) and even the building of the Hoover Dam (formerly known as the boulder Dam) to provide cheap electric power along with flood control, pastime and reproach conservation.In the 1960s, according to the environmental historian Samuel P. Hays, on that point was a shift in emphasis from resource efficiency to that of quality of career based on beauty, health and permanence arising out of the social changes and regeneration in human values in the post-War years (cited in Faulkner, 2002). variant private organizations were found, public agencies established and acts passed to address environmental issues. In 1969, there was Friends of the primer coat (FOE) which aimed to protect the planet from environmental disaster and to preserve biological, hea hence and ethnic diversity.The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ma de it requisite for federal agencies to prepare environment impact statement. To regulate the air and water quality, hazard and disposal management, the Environmental Protection Agency was established. In 1970, Earth Day was first promoted to fight environment causes and to oppose environmental humiliation which led o the Environmental Movement. In the same year, the U. S. passed the Clean demeanor Act.Almost two decades later, an agreement by industrialized nations called the Kyoto Protocol was reached to sign on greenhouse gas emissions (Merchant, 2002). The bell of substantially reducing industrial pollution is eminent but the costs of ignoring it is even higher as it would agree the sustainability of life itself. Question 2. The biosphere is a closed ecological system with impermanent resources and its equilibrium is maintained by grand-scale recycling (Pollution, 2004). Fungi and bacterium play major roles in maintaining a balanced ecosystem as they are in essence natu res recyclers.Some of these processes where they are problematical include photosynthesis and respiration, nitrogen fixation and denitrification. When an organic material is decomposed, the atmospheric hand over of carbon dioxide is replenished. Carbon dioxide is needed by kit and boodles for the photosynthetic process where atomic number 8 is a by-product and released into the atmosphere. Oxygen is essential for human respiration. Plants also need nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus in the form of phosphates in commit to flourish. These can be found in the soil.Nitrogen is obtained by dint of nitrification through microbes oxidizing ammonium to form nitrate and nitrate salts. It can also be obtained through bacteria living in the root nodules of legumes. They obtain tip off nitrogen from the air, and synthesize or fix it or even only if incorporate it into their bodies so when they die, the nitrogen compounds are released. The phosphorous cycle does not include a gaseous state. Instead, phosphates are removed from rocks where it usually occurs and distributed to both the soil and water.The plant absorbs all the nutrients it needs from the soil, produce its own food, releases oxygen, then are eaten by herbivores, who themselves are eaten by carnivores. The phosphates absorbed are returned to the soil through urine and feces as well as from plant and amanimal decomposition. Since the industrial revolution, we have increasingly ignored or altered the indispensable cycles. The resulting explosion in economic output has come at the cost of the long-term and dangerous depletion of natural capital.By relying on nitrogen fertiliser instead of organic farm wastes, we have reduced the fertility of plain lands and created dead zones in our oceans and rivers. Our logging operations and regular use of fossil fuels have increased atmospheric carbon concentrations to very high levels. By diverting or damming our rivers, weve dried out seas (or created new ones) , changes local persist patterns and disrupted entire ecosystems. Nature will not be able to keep up if the natural cycles are disrupted by high quantities of wastes. We know this simply cannot go on.