Governmental Impacts on our Animal Kingdom

Annayah Rosario

English 101

Professor King

12/24/23
 Governmental Impacts on our Animal Kingdom

Through many centuries we as humans have been causing destruction to the environment

around us with no care in the world, destroying another population that inhabits this planet Earth

called the Animal kingdom. Climate change has been a big factor in the decrease of the animal

population, and the government knows the severity of this issue by seeing temperatures rise and

abnormal amounts of natural disasters occuring. All this damage causes destruction of habitats,

less food sources, etc. Animal loss/decreases have been seen and noticed but the government

doesn't make any effort in trying to at least prevent it.

Deforestation, ocean and even land pollution are the other main causes of animal loss

since the world is evolving in different ways. For the past 5 centuries, the animal extinction rate

has increased 1,000-10,000 times more than the natural rate. The government has been noticing

these increasing rates but doesn't see them as a problem due to population increase which leads

to the high demand of building new community areas, housing, etc. It is imperative that people

start holding the government accountable for contributing to animal extinction, so the worldwide

issue can be seen. The government builds a lot of buildings to urbanize towns all over the world.

A lot of the time the buildings are just being built so the government can make more money to

urbanize the city/town even more.

You may think, how do we get all the space to build all these things? Well, the answer is

right in front of your eyes. It happens constantly around you and it has become so normalized in

this world that people don’t even think twice about it when we tear down small-larger plots in

the forests. It might not seem that bad now, but the bigger picture hasn’t been uncovered yet. All

forms of government use money that has either been taken out on special loans, or tax money to

create homes, popular food chains, shopping centers, etc. The government doesn't care about
what lives in the plots they are tearing down because it's all about the revenue that's going to

flow in once the construction job is complete. Construction generates a majority of the

greenhouse gasses that contaminate our water, our air, and our animals. Due to the lack of

energy-efficient vehicles such as tractors, cranes, etc. the amount of contaminated remains that

gets left in the air/ground is insane. According to Gocontracter, ¨How does construction Impact

the Environment,¨ Sonya Sikra wrote,

According to the U.K. Green Building Council, the construction sector uses more than

400 million tons of material a year, many of which has an adverse impact on the

environment. Additional research by Construction Products says that the products used

during a particular construction job can also have an impact on the surrounding

environment, due to the “extraction of raw materials”. Similarly, in the U.SA number of

tools and resources regularly used by contract workers and construction firms, such as

chemicals on site and even the Diesel used by diggers and trucks, can significantly “harm

public health and the environment,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA). (Construction Impact on Environment, 2020.,Para 2.)

This shows how much an impact construction can have on the environment. The government

knows all these studies and statistics but they still choose to build excessive amounts of fast food

chains, shopping centers when there could be one right around the corner. The environment

needs our attention, it's being hidden by extravagant grand openings.

We are clearcutting trees where different animal species inhabit it depending on the

region around the world hence why this leads to animals being more prone to being attacked and

killed by predators with nowhere to hide/escape. Since their natural habitat was destroyed they

have to adjust to a similar one or sometimes depending how serious deforestation was in their
areas, they might have to adjust to a whole new habitat with new unknown dangers and possibly

a limited food source. In the Stand for Trees article, ¨Death In The Forest: Deforestation Effects

on Animals And What You Can Do,¨ Stand for Trees authors wrote that,

It can cause them to completely lose their homes or be forced out of their natural range. It

can change existing habitats and remove sources of shelter, water, and food, such as fruit-

bearing trees.It also causes soil erosion, which can change the landscape and make it

harder to find food. And it worsens climate change by increasing greenhouse gas

emissions. This can affect weather and water availability, and increase the risk of natural

disasters. Animal species threatened by forest loss may also face increased competition

with others, and can be at higher risk of being killed by predators who have also lost their

natural habitat. Thus, the impacts of deforestation may be direct or indirect, but the end

result is the same: population decrease and higher risk of extinction. (¨Deforestation

Effects,¨ n.d., para 15.)

This shows that deforestation has many major effects on the different animal

species that inhabit the Forests. It also affects us humans as well since we have to breathe

in the air that is slowly being poisoned every day. The government just needs to be more

open minded to these problems rather than just caring about the financial side of every

problem so the community can be better healthwise and also prevent the rate of extinction

from increasing anymore than it normally should. Climate change not only plays a factor

on the animal species that live on land, but it also affects the species living in

oceanic/arctic biomes. Due to human activities the earth's surface temperature and

pollution is increasing every day, consequently this is leading to melting ice caps, warmer

water temp, and more ocean pollution. Some ocean inhabitants are dying off because of
 the amount of plastic, or substances that don't belong in an ocean such as oil, plastic, and

tar are being released. In the ¨Global Vulnerability of Marine Mammals to Global

Warming,¨National Library of Medicine Authors stated,

The increase in ocean temperatures could also affect the reproductive success of marine

mammals, as has been reported for female sperm whales, which have lower conception

rates after long exposure to higher sea surface temperatures (SSTs) than usual. Finally,

increases in ocean temperatures can have direct impacts on the survival rates of marine

mammals (e.g.16,17) by increasing the stress of organisms, fostering the development of

pathogens and increasing the propagation of pathogens to new species by causing species

to experience range shifts. Despite the large potential impacts of ocean warming on

marine mammals, the global vulnerability of marine mammals to global warming is

poorly understood. (¨Global¨ 2020, para 2.)

While ocean temperatures are rising it’s causing a large amount of effects to the oceanic

ecosystem. We have species that are migrating into colder oceans so they can live comfortably,

and if this continues at the same pace then we will have an unbalanced ecosystem if every

species is changing up how they live and interact with other animals as well. This can be

prevented if we take safety measures now and if the government starts contributing to help stop

excessively overusing factories, which is the main cause of pollution instead of just pushing it

aside and saying that's not the cause of why this is happening in the world today and putting the

blame on other companies.

Other than climate change and rising temperatures we as people pose one of the biggest

threats to the oceanic ecosystem: Plastic Waste. We use over billions of plastic bags throughout
the world to help us with our day to day activities, we drink from plastic water bottles, straws,

cups, etc. Where does all of it go though? Most of it goes into the ocean. As of 2021,

363,762,732,605 billion tons of plastic was estimated to be in the ocean just lingering around

being consumed by different oceanic species. That number doesn't count for how much is in an

animal's stomachs as well. In ¨Plastic Pollution is like a Slow–Motion Oil Spill,¨ the author

writes that,

This spill is a pervasive threat to ocean life and coastal communities. Plastic can be easily

mistaken by wildlife for food, and it has been found in more than half of all seabirds and

all species of sea turtles. Filter feeders like whale sharks can ingest microplastics, or very

small pieces of plastic, as they filter the surrounding water for food. And emerging

research shows that microplastics affect photosynthesis, growth and reproduction for

phytoplankton and zooplankton. These tiny organisms perform a critically important

service for the climate: like trees, they uptake carbon, helping the ocean absorb one third

of our greenhouse gas emissions. Ocean plastics, such as those collected by our

International Coastal Cleanup partners last week on beaches and waterways around the

world, are a product of the fossil fuel industry that is driving climate change. (¨Plastic¨,

2021, Para 5.)

This shows that plastic is a silent and invisible killer which is harming innocent animals

who don't know any better and are trying to survive in the world based on their survival

instincts. The government needs to pull their weight and start holding people accountable

for polluting the oceans while also creating different initiatives that involve the

community to help make a difference.