Tell me what you think people. Its not done yet but its 1/3 completed.
I re did some stuff to make it flow better let me know what u think. plz
Environmental Engineering
Since the earliest civilizations man has regarded the world around him with great respect and admiration. Living in harmony with his environment helped ensure his overall survival. From ancient China, Egypt and civilizations like Rome we have learned that environmental engineering was a part of any sustainable city. In today’s age of increased industrialization it has become progressively more evident that the condition of our environment is directly equivalent with our own health and long term survival on this planet. With the technological growth of civilization we have opened a “Pandora’s Box” of complications and problems. The study of Environmental Engineering is the application of science, technology and engineering practices geared towards improving the condition of our environment, providing clean air, water, and land for habitation. Using science and technology we can devise ways to remediate polluted sites, change practices in industry, design alternative methods of energy production, utilize waste, recycle used materials, clean air pollution, use reverse osmosis to sanitize our water, and repair our ecosystems. In this paper I am going to lightly touch on the history of environmental engineering, the history of pollution, industrialization, the problems we face, the roll we play and the future of the industry, science and technology of environmental engineering.
In ancient civilization water was the key to the overall success of a culture. It is not that much of a surprise then that early civilizations were born near rivers and clean water sources. Agricultural civilizations were first brought about with the taming of the waters, Egypt building irrigation to utilize the Nile all year round, Rome’s aqueducts that distributed clean water for miles, Harappan civilization utilized early sewers and the Greeks built elaborate bath houses. Like the ancients Environmental Engineering began with the need for acceptable drinking water and the disposal of liquid and solid wastes.
Unfortunately, the importance of clean water was not understood until the second half of the nineteenth century, a relatively recent development. In ancient Rome, sewers carried human waste into the Tiber River. By 312 B.C.E. the river was so polluted the Romans had to construct aqueducts to obtain clean drinking water. The pollution of water with raw sewage was the catalyst for many typhoid and cholera outbreaks throughout the centuries. Pollution is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it is older than most people realize. A good example of this is lead pollution from Roman smelters. Lead pollution can be traced all across Europe and is commonly attributed with mental and physical health problems with the peoples of that time. The first advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Persia, Greece and Rome increased the manufacture of forged metal. The forging of metals appears to be a key turning point in the creation of significant pollution levels. Core samples of glaciers in Greenland indicate increases in air pollution associated with Greek, Roman and Chinese metal production. Pollution at this time was limited in its effects on the environment due to the fact that early peoples were primarily transient. As humans moved from nomadic to settled societies, pollution increased in magnitude, becoming a real problem for the environment and its human and nonhuman inhabitants.
The Industrial revolution had one of the greatest effects on the world to date. It has also lead to a greater understanding of pollution and the environment. It started with the mechanization of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power, fuelled primarily by coal, drove the era’s machinery and lead to the dramatic increases in production capacity. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous.
The major problem to arise from the industrial revolution was the long term environmental effect on the planet. One of the largest contributors to this was the fuel of the era, coal. The emergence of mechanized factories and consumption of immense quantities of coal and other fossil fuels gave rise to unprecedented pollution. The coal industry has single handedly created some of most harmful effects on the planet ranging from air pollution, soil erosion, global warming, the generation of hundreds of millions of tons of waste products (including fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals.), acid rain from high sulphur coal, interference with ground water and water tables, land contamination, fly ash that causes background radiation exposure, and lung cancer from air pollutants. Machine based manufacturing drove the industrial revolution and what drove that was coal.
(Emissions from coal-fired power plants represent one of the two largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions, which are the main cause of global warming. Coal mining and abandoned mines also emit methane, another cause of global warming. Since the carbon content of coal is higher than oil, burning coal is a serious threat to the stability of the global climate, as this carbon forms CO2 when burned. Many other pollutants are present in coal power station emissions, as solid coal is more difficult to clean than oil, which is refined before use. A study commissioned by environmental groups claims that coal power plant emissions are responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths annually in the United States alone.)
During the time of the industrial revolution many technological leaps were made. Industry flourished and production began at a pace that was able to keep up with the demands of an ever expanding culture. For example the paper industry boomed due to the invention of the printing press. This invention allowed mass marketing to flourish at a scale that before in history was just not possible. These technological and social economical innovations lead to a great expansion in the production of paper which unfortunately has a significant impact on the environment. In the beginning the waste of the paper industry went unchecked, and the excess of production were being pumped into local rivers, lakes, the atmosphere and surrounding habitats.
(Even today the paper industry contributes to a large portion of the world’s pollution. The amount of paper and paper products is enormous, so the environmental impact is also very significant. Discarded paper is a major component of many landfill sites, accounting for about 35% by weight of municipal solid waste. It has been estimated that by 2020 paper mills will produce almost 500,000,000 tons of paper and paperboard per year. Pulp and paper is the third largest industrial polluter to air, water, and land in both Canada and the United States, and releases well over 100 million kg of toxic pollution each year. Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, accounting for 4 percent of all the world's energy use. The pulp and paper industry uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.)
The expansion of the industrial revolution from Europe to the Americas and also on to Asia brought forth a golden era of production. The effect of the boom in technology and industry went largely unchecked for many years. Most people do not realize that even 40 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution the signs of modern pollution were already rearing its ugly head. Even the journal of Science in 1883 by the famous Swedish geologist Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, accounts some of the first descriptions of air pollution building up over the Arctic. The historic accounts show that more than 130 years ago, the Industrial Revolution was already darkening the snow and skies of the far North.
By the 1920’s the industrialization of the world was fully underway and one of the most apocalyptic environmental problems was about to occur. The creation of the nuclear bomb. As we entered into the post world war era, industry and technology was beginning to progress exponentially. We were about to make one of the greatest and most prolific discoveries of all time, nuclear fission. Nuclear fission was first experimentally achieved by Enrico Fermi in 1934 when his team bombarded uranium with neutrons. This sparked a secret race between countries at war to develop the technology. The technology was first harnessed and used in the infamous Manhattan Project. The procuring and development of this technology had a huge drawback, and the world again did not put environmental planning into the proper disposal of the extremely harmful byproduct of nuclear fission. The material being used by this industry is Uranium -239, the mining, enrichment and use of this material leaves a long and harmful trail of waste. The radioactive effects on living organisms are severe and deadly. World War 2 and its aftermath of atomic warfare and testing made evident the perils of radioactive fallout. Even the uses afterwards of nuclear fuel for energy production continued with massive draw backs to the environment. Disasters such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl show the real danger of Nuclear power and the lasting effects it has on the environment.
(In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water." Despite copious quantities of waste, the DOE has stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025. The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards." The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.)
With a rash of environmental disasters the world was about to have pollution thrust to the forefront of people’s minds. In 1952 a man made catastrophe prompted some of the first major modern environmental legislation. The great smog of 1952 in London killed at least 8000 people and was an unfortunate and rude awakening to the problem at hand. Pollution began to draw major public attention in the United States between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, when Congress passed the Noise Control Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. International catastrophes such as the wreck of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker off the coast of Brittany in 1978 and the Bhopal disaster in 1984 have shown the universal effect of such environmental catastrophes and the scale of which efforts to address them are needed. Growing evidence of local and global pollution and an increasingly informed public over time have given rise to environmentalism and the environmental movement, which generally seek to limit human impact on the environment. The modern birth of environmental engineering was beginning to take hold.
(PCB dumping in the Hudson River resulted in a ban by the EPA on consumption of its fish in 1974. Long-term dioxin contamination at Love Canal starting in 1947 became a national news story in 1978 and led to the Superfund legislation of 1980. Legal proceedings in the 1990s helped bring to light Chromium-6 releases in California--the champions of whose victims became famous. The pollution of industrial land gave rise to the name brownfield, a term now common in city planning. DDT was banned in most of the developed world after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Lake Karachay, named by the World watch Institute as the "most polluted spot" on earth, served as a disposal site for the Soviet Union throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Second place may go to the area of Chelyabinsk U.S.S.R. as the "Most polluted place on the planet".)
heart I re did some stuff to make it flow better let me know what u think. plz
Environmental Engineering
Since the earliest civilizations man has regarded the world around him with great respect and admiration. Living in harmony with his environment helped ensure his overall survival. From ancient China, Egypt and civilizations like Rome we have learned that environmental engineering was a part of any sustainable city. In today’s age of increased industrialization it has become progressively more evident that the condition of our environment is directly equivalent with our own health and long term survival on this planet. With the technological growth of civilization we have opened a “Pandora’s Box” of complications and problems. The study of Environmental Engineering is the application of science, technology and engineering practices geared towards improving the condition of our environment, providing clean air, water, and land for habitation. Using science and technology we can devise ways to remediate polluted sites, change practices in industry, design alternative methods of energy production, utilize waste, recycle used materials, clean air pollution, use reverse osmosis to sanitize our water, and repair our ecosystems. In this paper I am going to lightly touch on the history of environmental engineering, the history of pollution, industrialization, the problems we face, the roll we play and the future of the industry, science and technology of environmental engineering.
In ancient civilization water was the key to the overall success of a culture. It is not that much of a surprise then that early civilizations were born near rivers and clean water sources. Agricultural civilizations were first brought about with the taming of the waters, Egypt building irrigation to utilize the Nile all year round, Rome’s aqueducts that distributed clean water for miles, Harappan civilization utilized early sewers and the Greeks built elaborate bath houses. Like the ancients Environmental Engineering began with the need for acceptable drinking water and the disposal of liquid and solid wastes.
Unfortunately, the importance of clean water was not understood until the second half of the nineteenth century, a relatively recent development. In ancient Rome, sewers carried human waste into the Tiber River. By 312 B.C.E. the river was so polluted the Romans had to construct aqueducts to obtain clean drinking water. The pollution of water with raw sewage was the catalyst for many typhoid and cholera outbreaks throughout the centuries. Pollution is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it is older than most people realize. A good example of this is lead pollution from Roman smelters. Lead pollution can be traced all across Europe and is commonly attributed with mental and physical health problems with the peoples of that time. The first advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Persia, Greece and Rome increased the manufacture of forged metal. The forging of metals appears to be a key turning point in the creation of significant pollution levels. Core samples of glaciers in Greenland indicate increases in air pollution associated with Greek, Roman and Chinese metal production. Pollution at this time was limited in its effects on the environment due to the fact that early peoples were primarily transient. As humans moved from nomadic to settled societies, pollution increased in magnitude, becoming a real problem for the environment and its human and nonhuman inhabitants.
The Industrial revolution had one of the greatest effects on the world to date. It has also lead to a greater understanding of pollution and the environment. It started with the mechanization of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power, fuelled primarily by coal, drove the era’s machinery and lead to the dramatic increases in production capacity. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous.
The major problem to arise from the industrial revolution was the long term environmental effect on the planet. One of the largest contributors to this was the fuel of the era, coal. The emergence of mechanized factories and consumption of immense quantities of coal and other fossil fuels gave rise to unprecedented pollution. The coal industry has single handedly created some of most harmful effects on the planet ranging from air pollution, soil erosion, global warming, the generation of hundreds of millions of tons of waste products (including fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals.), acid rain from high sulphur coal, interference with ground water and water tables, land contamination, fly ash that causes background radiation exposure, and lung cancer from air pollutants. Machine based manufacturing drove the industrial revolution and what drove that was coal.
(Emissions from coal-fired power plants represent one of the two largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions, which are the main cause of global warming. Coal mining and abandoned mines also emit methane, another cause of global warming. Since the carbon content of coal is higher than oil, burning coal is a serious threat to the stability of the global climate, as this carbon forms CO2 when burned. Many other pollutants are present in coal power station emissions, as solid coal is more difficult to clean than oil, which is refined before use. A study commissioned by environmental groups claims that coal power plant emissions are responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths annually in the United States alone.)
During the time of the industrial revolution many technological leaps were made. Industry flourished and production began at a pace that was able to keep up with the demands of an ever expanding culture. For example the paper industry boomed due to the invention of the printing press. This invention allowed mass marketing to flourish at a scale that before in history was just not possible. These technological and social economical innovations lead to a great expansion in the production of paper which unfortunately has a significant impact on the environment. In the beginning the waste of the paper industry went unchecked, and the excess of production were being pumped into local rivers, lakes, the atmosphere and surrounding habitats.
(Even today the paper industry contributes to a large portion of the world’s pollution. The amount of paper and paper products is enormous, so the environmental impact is also very significant. Discarded paper is a major component of many landfill sites, accounting for about 35% by weight of municipal solid waste. It has been estimated that by 2020 paper mills will produce almost 500,000,000 tons of paper and paperboard per year. Pulp and paper is the third largest industrial polluter to air, water, and land in both Canada and the United States, and releases well over 100 million kg of toxic pollution each year. Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, accounting for 4 percent of all the world's energy use. The pulp and paper industry uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.)
The expansion of the industrial revolution from Europe to the Americas and also on to Asia brought forth a golden era of production. The effect of the boom in technology and industry went largely unchecked for many years. Most people do not realize that even 40 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution the signs of modern pollution were already rearing its ugly head. Even the journal of Science in 1883 by the famous Swedish geologist Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, accounts some of the first descriptions of air pollution building up over the Arctic. The historic accounts show that more than 130 years ago, the Industrial Revolution was already darkening the snow and skies of the far North.
By the 1920’s the industrialization of the world was fully underway and one of the most apocalyptic environmental problems was about to occur. The creation of the nuclear bomb. As we entered into the post world war era, industry and technology was beginning to progress exponentially. We were about to make one of the greatest and most prolific discoveries of all time, nuclear fission. Nuclear fission was first experimentally achieved by Enrico Fermi in 1934 when his team bombarded uranium with neutrons. This sparked a secret race between countries at war to develop the technology. The technology was first harnessed and used in the infamous Manhattan Project. The procuring and development of this technology had a huge drawback, and the world again did not put environmental planning into the proper disposal of the extremely harmful byproduct of nuclear fission. The material being used by this industry is Uranium -239, the mining, enrichment and use of this material leaves a long and harmful trail of waste. The radioactive effects on living organisms are severe and deadly. World War 2 and its aftermath of atomic warfare and testing made evident the perils of radioactive fallout. Even the uses afterwards of nuclear fuel for energy production continued with massive draw backs to the environment. Disasters such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl show the real danger of Nuclear power and the lasting effects it has on the environment.
(In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water." Despite copious quantities of waste, the DOE has stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025. The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards." The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.)
With a rash of environmental disasters the world was about to have pollution thrust to the forefront of people’s minds. In 1952 a man made catastrophe prompted some of the first major modern environmental legislation. The great smog of 1952 in London killed at least 8000 people and was an unfortunate and rude awakening to the problem at hand. Pollution began to draw major public attention in the United States between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, when Congress passed the Noise Control Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. International catastrophes such as the wreck of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker off the coast of Brittany in 1978 and the Bhopal disaster in 1984 have shown the universal effect of such environmental catastrophes and the scale of which efforts to address them are needed. Growing evidence of local and global pollution and an increasingly informed public over time have given rise to environmentalism and the environmental movement, which generally seek to limit human impact on the environment. The modern birth of environmental engineering was beginning to take hold.
(PCB dumping in the Hudson River resulted in a ban by the EPA on consumption of its fish in 1974. Long-term dioxin contamination at Love Canal starting in 1947 became a national news story in 1978 and led to the Superfund legislation of 1980. Legal proceedings in the 1990s helped bring to light Chromium-6 releases in California--the champions of whose victims became famous. The pollution of industrial land gave rise to the name brownfield, a term now common in city planning. DDT was banned in most of the developed world after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Lake Karachay, named by the World watch Institute as the "most polluted spot" on earth, served as a disposal site for the Soviet Union throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Second place may go to the area of Chelyabinsk U.S.S.R. as the "Most polluted place on the planet".)
