STUDY OF LAND POLLUTION

Pollution represents the confluence of humans interacting with the Earth environment. Humans have always polluted their environment: just by living, we create a waste that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for us. In the geologic past, this wasn’t such a problem because the human population on Earth was small enough that natural systems could compensate and dissipate the pollutants. Sometimes humans would just move away from a polluted area. But, as we know from our understanding of human population growth, exponential growth means exponential amounts of pollution: with nine billion people forecasted to be on Earth this century, pollution by humans has far exceeded the ability of ecosystems to handle it. A paper mill in New Richmond, Quebec that lacks common pollution control equipment for soot. Compound this with modern living which has also brought up whole new types of pollution: pollution by heavy metals that were once buried in the earth along with fossil fuels, and pollution by human-created molecules (e.g., pharmaceuticals and chemicals like PCBs), pollution by radioactive waste. While some types of pollution can be handled by our environment (bacteria and other microbes can break-down natural waste products), many of these “new” pollutants are persistent: they cannot be easily broken down by natural processes. The result of population growth, natural waste production, and these “new” pollutants means that Earth systems must contend with a myriad of pollutants.