Understanding the effects of environmental and artificial risks, as well as safeguarding people’s health and ecological processes from these hazards, is what environmental health entails. The Open University presents a list of the most critical environmental hazards. In summary, the four types of hazards are physical, biological, chemical, and cultural (if one includes social dangers in this type, which is appropriate). As such, physical hazards come from natural materials or circumstances that endanger our bodily well-being. Biological hazards are created by creatures or animal products dangerous to humans, such as bacteria. When an individual is exposed to a hazardous chemical (for example, insecticide), chemical dangers exist. Finally, cultural risks are caused by one’s geographic location, socioeconomic background, employment, and psychosocial factors.
In ranking the mentioned hazards from 1 to 4, I would give 4 to biological threats. Namely, the risk of catching COVID-19 disease is still high, and the outcome of illness might be death. The next impactful hazard in my life is chemicals; since I work in the garden and use pesticides often, I am at risk of being poisoned if I misuse them. Furthermore, physical hazards are threatening everyone’s life, although they do happen not often, so I rate it with 2. Finally, cultural hazard gets 1 in the rating due to the fact that the US has a developed system of social security that might help a person in need.
Toxic chemicals can take several routes to impact my body. As such, fresh fruits may contain pesticides; the excess of bleaching powder can harm me. Summing up the information from US EPA, formaldehyde is quite dangerous. However, it is used in medicine, construction works, and cosmetics. A website article “Toxic Chemicals” also describes the threat of asbestos. In fact, asbestos is also present in building materials.
Poisons infiltrate the food chain through bioaccumulation, which occurs when toxins accumulate in particular organisms. Hazardous bioaccumulation is an issue that affects all living beings. It happens due to the state of balance of absorption and disposal; for example, aquatic puffin suffers from the presence of heavyweight metals in their habitat. The longer a particular poisonous chemical lives in an organism, the greater the chance of lifelong poisoning, even if the toxin’s amounts are not excessive.
Biodiversity has been classified in various ways; there are several levels. As such, the article “Biodiversity” from the Ecological Society of America distinguishes three significant levels. Namely, genetics, species, and ecosystem diversity are the most popular points for the classification of life. Unfortunately, biodiversity has been declining for a long time. An online article from Lai extensively describes the causes of this process. In brief, forest and land exploitation, pollution, and climate change are the most prominent reasons. I believe that pollution is the most vital issue to address due to the fact that technologies already allow stopping damage the nature by waste. Thus, it is only a matter of habit and mass use of eco-friendly products and manufacturing.
Many of the essential functions that people rely on are provided by environments. Plants purify the air and streams, microbes degrade trash, and root systems keep the earth in place to avoid erosion. These processes interact to keep ecosystems healthy, stable, functioning, and flexible. As direct outputs of ecosystems, people have access to crops, vegetation, forests, seafood, and cattle. Other sorts of ecosystem services, in addition to food, include water supply, lumber, fuelwood, oil and gas, lipids, and plants that may be used to make garments and other goods.
Works Cited
“Biodiversity.” Ecological Society of America.
Lai, Olivia. “What Are the Biggest Causes of Biodiversity Loss?” Earth.Org, 2022.
The Open University. “Hygiene and Environmental Health Module: 2. Environmental Health Hazards.” The Open University.
“Toxic Chemicals.” Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, 2019.
US EPA. “Facts About Formaldehyde.” US EPA.