This question can lead down many paths. For example the proximity of an environment. Your personal environment could be your home and your social environment could be your town. Aslo various aspects of an environment contribute to the conclusion of whether or not an environment is safe. Crime rates and the quality of public transport are examples of social factors which dictate the level of safety of an environment. However, in this post we want to take a look at the factors which directly affect the health of us and our planet - we will focus on three locations: your home, your region and our planet as a whole.
The older your home is, the more at risk your health is. Potential dangers range from lead painting to faulty electrics. In terms of a safe environment, the age of a building has the same relevance. Buildings built 40 years ago were not aware of the current environmental affairs and therefore houses built in this period are not as environmentally safe as we thought. The more problems and faults a building possesses the more energy is wasted. When energy is wasted, instead of creating an efficient system, more energy is pumped into the building. Older houses typically use a lot more electricity than more modern houses. So, if you live in an older house/apartment do some research into the various systems and methods to keep your home running. Is it as efficient, and subsequently safe, as it should be? If not, how can you make a difference for the better?
The safety of your local environment depends on the location of your home. London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool are the top ranked cities in the UK for pollution raets. These four locations could not be more spread apart. Therefore, this suggests that wherever you live it is extremely hard to escape high levels of pollution. What causes pollution? Pollution is caused by certain gases becoming trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. This can be a result of non recycled plastic and greenhouse gas emissions. So, how do you discover whether or not your town/city is a safe place to live? To distinguish the answer to this you must conduct your own research. Are there many factories in close proximity to your home? Is recycling plastic encouraged? Is there lots of traffic outside your house or in the city centre? These are all factors you must consider when determining if the location of your home is a safe environment.
Finally, we have analysed your home and the location you live in, now is time to look at the wider picture - is our planet safe? In recent posts we took a look at how our planet would look in 10 years time and the possible results were quite disturbing. However, the threat to human life does not just lie in the future. The levels of air pollution in East Asia are reaching extremely unhealthy levels. Asia may seem far away in distance so if we were to use Europe as an example then the figures may become more present. Tio Pino in Spain has the second largest figure of air pollution in the world (according to the Air Quality Index). Due to the COVID-19 outbreak people believe our environment is improving. Yes the damage has stopped, but we are far from improvement. Plastic is still being left in our oceans because people are not recycling. People are refusing to give up their cars for more sustainable forms of transport. Damage has stopped, but if change does not start then our environment will never be safe again - forget location, the whole of planet Earth is suffocating, it is time for change.
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