What are specific concerns related to the STATE of the environment and why are these problems happening?

Answer 1

Land pollution and some causes:

• Too many people treat the land as their own garbage dump
• Centralized landfills are leeching chemicals into groundwater and soil, which ends up in streams and creeks
• Farmers use too many fertilizers, which runs off into the soil and nearby streams.

Water pollution and some causes:

• For many years, humans have used oceans for landfill waste, so now there is floating garbage in many waterways.
• Corporations try to violate EPA guidelines by dumping fluid wastes (used oil, used fracking liquid, etc.) into streams and rivers.
• Corporations have old leaking pipes that carry chemical wastes too near waterways so they contaminate rivers.
• People don't think before throwing trash into creeks, streams, harbors, etc.
• People leave trash on beaches, indifferent to the fact that tides or winds will wash it into the oceans.

Air pollution

• For decades, corporations used coal, a fossil fuel, to heat for manufacturing. This used to produce thick fog over most northern US towns.
• Car exhaust still produces concentrated pollution in cities.
• Many countries use "slash and burn" practices on farms in Asian countries, unaware or indifferent to how winds carry the pollution across other countries and the globe.