Impact of human activity

The Earth is our only source of resources, and these are limited. As the population keeps growing, recycling becomes more important. Increased levels of carbon dioxide are linked to climate change.

Part of

Chemistry

Earth and the environment

The impact of humans

The Earth is the source of all the resources we need, such as metals, plastics and fuels. Humans are very successful living things. We compete with other organisms for many natural resources. These include:

land (for farms, buildings and roads)
water (for drinking, watering fields, and industry)

The world’s human population is increasing, and this means that we are using more resources all the time.

Population growth

The human population in the year 1800 was about 1 billion, and now it is more than 7 billion (more than 7,000,000,000).

Graph shows population in billions. The population is steady, at just over 0 billion, until 4000 BCE, when it begins to rise. At around 1000 CE there is a sharper increase.

Deforestation

Humans have been cutting down trees for thousands of years. We do this to clear land for farming and building, and for wood to use as a fuel or building material.

Forestry is sustainable as long as forests are allowed to replace themselves, or are replanted after felling, but often this is not done. The result is that the world’s forests are steadily shrinking.

The slideshow maps show the loss of forest across the world over the last 10,000 years: