HEALTH AND OUR ENVIRONMENT

Some of the factors that affect our environment are:
1. Global warming which is aggravated by the emission of greenhouse gases such as:
a. Methane gas and Carbon Dioxide. Methane gas is produced by decaying biological products such as plants, animals and other living creatures. It is also produced by the digestion process in living creatures.
b. Carbon Dioxide gas is produced by the burning of fuel and the digestion of food by living creatures. Carbon Dioxide is absorbed by plants. If the production of Carbon Dioxide was commensurate with the absorption by plants there would be a natural equilibrium. The burning of plants however upsets the natural balance between the production of carbon dioxide and the absorption by plants. The imbalance if pronounced is a cause of global warming. Global warming can alter the dynamics of our earth and cause vast and erratic changes in weather patterns. These altered weather patterns can negatively influence the existence of certain species. Our ability to adapt to the predicted weather changes will become challenging to say the least.

2. OVER POPULATION OF THE EARTH.
The production capacity of the earth is limited. Ask a farmer and he will tell you that a given piece of land under good productive conditions will produce x amount of a given product be it vegetable or animal. On the other hand the population of our planet is such that the present production capacity will not suffice to adequately feed all the people and animals of our planet. The availability of jobs is also insufficient to cope with the population explosion. The result is an inequitable increase in poverty not to mention the deaths due to disease and starvation we witness in parts of our world. Governments should encourage people to only have as many children as they can afford. They can give tax benefits to those who follow this advice. If this advice was followed by families they would be alleviating poverty. Some people do not earn enough to adequately house, feed, clothe and educate themselves or their children. This results in stress in the family and problems for government because government is expected to provide sustenance for those who cannot financially afford it. The tax payer who provides government with the funds to run the country is dissatisfied with this situation and rightly so. This situation can have dire consequences. Simply put we cannot allow the world population to explode, the consequences will be dire.