Book Description

The global environment has been going through significant challenges in recent times due to a number of factors such as industrial pollution, expansion of agricultural land way beyond the fringe forest zones, destruction of virgin forests, loss of quality agricultural lands due to soil erosion, loss of global wildlife and biodiversity, climate change, global warming, devastating forest fires, floods, draughts, melting of glaciers to mention only a handful. The list could possibly go on and on with never ending items being added covering every aspect of modern human life. But there is an important underlying hidden factor behind all these that we all need to identify and realize. The most alarming fact about this hidden factor is that they are all directly or indirectly impacted by human activities in some way or other. Human civilizations have reached great strides from the earliest days when men first discovered wheel or learnt the art of agriculture and crop and livestock breeding. We have seen the age of computronics, robotics and now moving into the age of biotechnology, genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Our science quests have stretched beyond the borders of the home planet and we have even started stretching hands in unlocking the secrets of distant members of our solar system. This is indeed tremendous progress; there could be no doubt about that. But at the same time we also need to remember about the impending darkness too beneath the lamp that provides light to the rest of room. While we are standing in gaining a lot; but are we paying enough attention to what we are also loosing at the same time. The loss of forested areas, building up carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere, pollution of both fresh and salt water via number of toxic chemicals both of inorganic and organic nature, poor quality of the air we are breathing and the catastrophic loss of global biodiversity- are these not a sign of regress instead of the so called and highly cherished progress towards a darker and destructive future. Human or anthropogenic impacts are in turn devastating the planet with our attention being shifted only to the shinning aspect of our civilizations. There is indeed a darker side of every bright picture that is being placed in front of our glaring eyes. There is no silver lining in every cloud that we see on the sky. We are becoming seriously myopic and choosing to ignore the deadly symptoms that are showing up in front of us every now and then as a result of our own activities. Anthropogenic impacts have been devastating to our global ecosystems and are challenging our local environments in a significant manner. As responsible global citizens we strongly believe that we need to voice our concerns to the incessant global environmental pollution happening at every instance at different corners of earth. Hence is the humble effort of coming up with an international, peer-reviewed volume on Anthropogenic Pollution: Causes and Concerns. The current volume is a collection of a number of articles from scientists, academics, researchers, journalists, bureaucrats and technocrats from different parts of the world. Each article talks about a separate story and highlights some specific problems caused by anthropogenic impact and resulting in detrimental forms of environmental pollution. Each article is complete with its table, graphs, diagrams and bibliography to cater to a wide range of readers from serious academics, researchers and students to environmental enthusiasts and general public interested in stretching their boundary of knowledge way beyond traditional education. The volume will also be useful for both under graduate and post graduate students specializing in environmental science/studies and also for the MPhil curriculum and entry level PhD courses at different academic institutes.