Imagine a home getting torn down and demolished. It was all for another house that may have been bigger, but it is living on top of the graves of the destroyed. That old home supported thousands versus the five new lives. This happens more than a lot of people care to think about. Losing biodiversity is a scary thing to imagine, but people need to face reality. Humans are causing most of the problems by deforestation, water pollution, poaching, and a lot more problems that we choose not to face. It’s a problem that can be prevented, but will be a challenge to bring back to normal. By explaining the problems people cause to biodiversity, such as population growth, pollution, landscape fragmentation, and habitat change, the reality of biodiversity loss will unfold.

Population growth is a major factor that’s affecting biodiversity loss. The main reason why this is affecting the world’s biodiversity is because people need to make room for the enormous population. By cutting down forests to put up buildings, people are only taking away from biodiversity. Huge population of humans also applies to our use of cars. People are using so many fossil fuels to make their travel easier, but what they don’t think about when they are filling up their car at the gas station is the can’t get those fossil fuels back. With using less fossil fuels, cars are dramatically improving and running on electricity. By using replenishable resources instead of fossil fuels, some communities can improve the effects the population has on the environment. Electric cars can help people eliminate fossil fuel use as well as decreasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; according to an article written by Peter M. Vitousek and Harold A. Mooney from Stanford University, Jane Lubchenco, and Jerry M. Melillo on July 25th, 1997, “carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.” Other options to help make an impact biodiversity for the better is simply ride a bike if the location isn’t too far away. Creating restrictions on uses of land and protecting land from getting demolished that have a large population of animals and plants will keep much of our biodiversity safe. There are many benefits to just thinking about our environment more, and if people think hard enough they may realize the the more of us equals less of biodiversity. Humanity can’t run out of biodiversity otherwise humans will run out of resources. Humans are only make things worse by polluting with all of the cars we need.
Pollution affects the environment and the prodigious human population doesn’t help decrease it. According to The New York Times article “Environmental Factors Like Pollution Cause a Quarter of Deaths, W.H.O. Says” written by Sabrina Tavernise on March 15th, 2016,  “environmental risk factors accounted for 12.6 million deaths,” and air pollution was one of the factors that caused the most deaths. People are causing this harm to themselves, so try to take a guess who is making most of the air pollution. There is only little amounts of natural pollution compared to the large numbers of manmade pollution. If there are less pollutant causing factories and people give more care to the effects they have on our air, many improvements in biodiversity will occur. The protection of biodiversity is getting much better, but people have to create stricter laws on how much pollutants a company can make. It will improve biodiversity as well as the quality of life much higher. Cleaner air means easier breathing for humans and the environment.

Landscaping fragmentation is another problem that seems to go unnoted. Neighbors looking at a pretty lawn and thinking, “Oh my gosh, their lawn is so beautiful and green!”, but people don’t realize is what it takes to make that happen. Large amounts of water are wasted, as well as time on people trying to look like environmentalists when they aren’t. Having well kept lawns may look pretty, but they aren’t a natural habitat for animals. Animals are usually kicked out anyways because they will mess up the grass. They are only there because they need to be to find food and to find shelter the lawn used to have. According to the Green Facts website written in 2005 says “Small fragments of habitat can only support small populations, which tend to be more vulnerable to extinction.” This means that it’s a weaker landscape if fragmentation occurs. Landscape fragmentation changes animals’ and plants’ habitats dramatically, and it occurs more often than most people care to think about. Relating largely to habitat change,

Habitat change affects our wildlife all of the time, as it is one of the worst problems. As said before, people take down forests and basically any land they see fit to build houses that they want. Taking houses from the wildlife for themselves with no eviction notice, only bulldozers plowing the animals’ and plants’ homes down. People don’t only take our wildlife’s homes. They take their lives. Creating restrictions on uses of land and protecting land from getting demolished that have a large population of animals and plants will keep much of our biodiversity safe. Think of how many animals are killed in the making of these skyscrapers and roads. There is also habitat change in oceans caused by humans. An article called “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services” written by many scientists around the world from the Science AAAS website posted on November 3rd, 2006, stated that “Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increase productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%.” This destruction of wildlife in oceans and on land is going to destroy the hope people have for oceanic biodiversity as well. Animals will get desperate to climb the food chain and plants will struggle to live, leaving people without the strong sources of oxygen plants give people all over the world. As humans working together, people can help decrease habitat loss and create a more stable environment. If we lower the need for huge, unnecessary homes, factories, roads, and many other factors that contribute to habitat loss and destruction we will improve our biodiversity. Those animals won’t get desperate and those plants won’t struggle to live since they aren’t breathing the polluted air. All of these problems are a huge part of biodiversity loss that can be fixed if given the time.

There are so many other problems that affect biodiversity and affect people as well. They all have a cause and effect with each other. Large population causes lots of habitat change, and lots of habitat change causes pollution. It’s a cycle people need to break to save the world. It may sound cheesey, but that’s the truth that will help. Changing our policies that just brush over what’s safe or not to improve business is a major change that needs to happen. Ignoring the reality of the environment must cease because if they do there won’t be on left for anyone to enjoy. Why do people destroy the planet’s natural buildings of trees that support ecosystems? The ecosystems were here first. People kicked them out because they were in the way, but survival of the fittest right? That’s a reason people came up with to make it okay for what they do. People should wonder what the ecosystems think about them since they don’t understand the ecosystems. Making a difference by helping the ecosystems voice their side may help the world’s biodiversity become stronger.