The Connection Between Urbanisation And Pollution - Essay Example

?What is the connection between urbanisation and pollution? Introduction Humans have changed widely the earth. There is a wide range of changes and these are tantamount to how everything develops from the point of view of environmental factors. For instance, technological advancement leads to massive industrial revolution. In fact, humans have become too dependent on technology as life uncovers day by day. Due to high capacity of human to think and because of their growing needs as population also increases, major places on earth have become so congested and it further resulted to unnecessary processes with major impacts for the society in general. In this paper, the proponent tries to examine the link between urbanisation and pollution. In doing so, the proponent tries to define first the basic concepts of urbanisation and pollution. What is urbanisation? The presented classic definition of urbanisation is a process by which people and their increasing population densely occupy urban areas or towns (Ohngren, 1981). Urbnisation therefore is a process that tries to consider the need of the society for development based on the human standard and needs. Witherick (1999) emphasises that urbanisation is a process but it constitutes some important changes particularly in line with the economy, population distribution, change of the way of life, settlement’s sizes and character change. This only emphasises the fact that there are major changes and shift from an ordinary way of living to another level. This is what concerns the population in general because behind all these changes are impacts that require substantial considerations. What is pollution? The vast changes on earth which some of them resulted to pollution are eventually products of human activities (Hill, 2010). Hill focused on environmental pollutions as eventual results of human activities on earth. Pollution comes in wide range and faces. However, when one hears about pollution what comes to mind first are results of human activities since nature by itself is capable of maintaining the needed balance. However, all those activities done by humans are responsible for the destruction of such balance in nature and which eventually result at some point to environmental pollution. This is what Hill would like to emphasize that humans are capable of destroying the balance of nature in order to obtain the needs and wants of the society as in line with the contexts of political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental considerations. Pollution is everywhere around the globe and it can be in different forms. It can be classified as air, water or land pollution. These pollutions are of varying degrees and most of them are results of industrial revolution from the past and at recent sophistication of our time. The use of technology finds ways for its further development and such also results to creation of things that pave way to environmental pollution. The global warming is said to be an impact of industrial revolution since such is said to be due to the polluted atmosphere with green house gases emitted by technologically advanced society. Pollution such as emission of green house gases is said to be on its fast pace especially in highly industrialised or developed countries. The United States for instance is said to be among of the major countries with high contribution of emitted green house gases such as carbon dioxide due to the nature of its industry. This therefore has an important implication that cities are among of the top contributors of pollution on earth. Thus, this leads to further understanding of the existing relationship between the incident of pollution and urbanisation. These two are processes but at some point, the former is said to be the result of the latter. Pollution as an impact of urbanisation Political, social and economic aspects of a nation are interrelated to its physical environment because of the presence of potential human actions in every day (Middleton, 2008). One of the most important connections that can be made out between urbanisation and pollution includes economic activities. In order for a certain economy to survive, there is a need to enhance its economy. However, enhancing a nation’s economy requires substantial consideration on its other environmental factors. The Obama administration for the first time tries to regulate climate-altering gases and fuel economy standards (Broder, 2010). This is a bit harder considering that the use of fossil fuel is central to the US economy. Doing such of this decision means it would make some certain compromise of the US environmental factors at some certain level. In fact, as Broder reported this is said to generate some political misunderstanding within the US government system. Even so, the state of California is willing to go forward to its energy reform (Barringer, 2010). However, there is no other important thing to do in order to obtain sustainability but it is necessary to adjust human activities in order to restore the balance of nature. The US is home to major cities with major developments in the world. To think that the US is one of major contributors of green house gases is just an indication that urbanisation is a significant process that contributes environmental pollution. On the other hand, the use of vehicles and a substantial number of them in urban areas in particular leads to air pollution (Seitz, 2008). This is agreed by Brimblecombe (2001) that the use of fuel is the major reason why cities are covered particularly by air pollution. Looking at it on health-related concerns, rhinitis such as hay fever type which occurs in season is identified as pollution-related disease and it was rare in Europe until industrial revolution (Tunnicliffe and Ayres, 2001). Thus, Tunnicliffe and Ayres presented another name for it as post-industrial revolution epidemic implying that the disease is probably an upshot of urbanisation. Conclusion Urbanisation and pollution are strongly link with each other. The higher standard of living and human activities in urban areas is undeniably helping to sustain survival. However, this at the other side of the coin also poses dangers particularly for the environment. Pollution is increasingly a remarkable area of concern in recent time. References Barriger, F. (2010) ‘California Approves Stringent Pollution Curbs.’ [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/science/earth/17cap.html?ref=airpollution (Accessed: 09 January 2010). Brimblecombe, P. (2001) ‘Urban air pollution’, in P. Brimblecombe and R. L. Maynard (eds). The urban atmosphere and its effects. London: Imperial College Press. (pages 1-20). Broder, J. M. (2010) ‘E.P.A. Limit on Gases to Pose Risk to Obama and Congress.’ [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/science/earth/31epa.html?_r=1&ref=airpollution (Accessed: 09 January 2011). Broder, J. M. (2010) ‘New U.S. Standards Take Aim at Truck Emissions and Fuel Economy.’ Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/business/26trucks.html?ref=airpollution (Accessed: 09 January 2011). Hill, M. K. (2010) Understanding Environmental Pollution. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pages 1-2). Middleton, N. (2008) The global casino: an introduction to environmental issues. 4th ed. London: Hodder Arnold. Ohngren, B. (1981) ‘Urbanisation in Sweden, 1840-1920’, in H. Schmal (ed). Patterns of European urbanisation since 1500. Great Britain: Routledge. (page 188). Seitz, J. L. (2008) Global issues. Oxford: Blackwell (page 113). Tunnicliffe, W. S., and Ayres, J. G. (2001) 'Trends in air pollution related disease', in P. Brimblecombe, and R. L. Maynard (eds). The urban atmosphere and its effects. London: World Scientific. (pages.24-27) Witherick, M. E. (1999) The urban world: process and issues. England: Nelson and Thornes. (pages 6-7) Read More