Humans affect the environment by wasting gas, wasting electricity, creating pollution, wasting resources, littering, cutting down trees, bringing animals to extinction, planting trees where they aren't native, and a lot of other things. Also, humans kill each other in wars, which affects the environment, too. Finally, humans camp, which increases the rate of forest fires, tearing down lots of resources.
Humans can also improve their environment. The great plains of North America was once considered a desert, but now produces food for the world. Heating and air conditioning make it possible to live in many places where it is naturally too hot or cold.
People affect the environment with normal things we do every day. For example, suppose you woke up and saw you had left the lamp on. The energy used for the lamp comes from the electrical company who uses a process that will send pollution into the air causing breathing problems for both humans and animals. To stop pollution like that from going into the air you should probably turn off lights and electronics when leaving the room.
Again suppose you were getting ready to take a bath and you filled the tub up too much. That water could have gone to the plant to water plants that we need to survive or even to a family that could have used it to drink. To solve this taking a shower every other day would help a great deal.
Lets take another example. You have gone to the store and bought a large thing of plastic water bottles instead of buying a filter for your sink. When you are done with the water bottle you throw it away and it goes into a land fill. Research has shown that plastic, like water bottles, won't start decomposing until approximately 1,000 years after being put in a land fill. To solve this, buying a filter for your sink would be great because water in the bottle is the same as from the sink. Even recycling the water bottles you drink out of is a big help for the environment
Another big problem is littering. You can help save a lot of animals by putting your garbage in a trash can or recycling it. Recycling paper can save thousands of trees that we need for our survival. Picking up litter is also a very good idea.
Cars and their exhaust are also causing problems by adding pollution into the air. Walking to work or taking public transportation or even riding your bike if you have one can decrease the pollution in our air making it easier to breath both for us and the animals.
Now suppose you were on vacation and you visit a forest and the rules say you must stay on the path. You have been following the rules, but you see a family off the path picking flowers and a little later you see another person picking flowers off the path. You think it is alright, so you go pick some flowers to press as a keepsake. Though you may not think it is bad, by walking off of the path you are causing a new path to be made and destroying an animals home in the process. When you pick the flowers you are also destroying some animals source of food and could cause them to starve. Instead of walking off the path stay on and enjoy the scenery and instead of picking the flowers take pictures.
There is still a whole lot more we can do to protect our environment and this has hardly scratched the surface. By goggling and researching you can find more ways to help the environment and learn how you affect it.
