Describe two potential environmental benefits and two potential environmental drawbacks of urbanization
What will be an ideal response?
The rapid urbanization occurring across the globe brings with it potential environmental benefits as well as potential negative impacts. People living in cities are at much higher densities than those living in suburbs and rural areas, so the physical amount of living space needed per person is smaller. Therefore, their personal impact is less spread across the landscape, thus decreasing the need for conversion of natural ecosystems and cropland to living space. People in cities tend to have smaller homes than people elsewhere and thus use less energy in their homes, and they also tend to drive less. The use of less energy slows global climate change and allows us to extend our energy resources further into the future. With less living space per person and lower per-capita energy use, an urban lifestyle can be more sustainable. However, large concentrations of humans create problems with large quantities of wastewater and solid waste, and proper treatment of sewage and proper disposal of large amounts of garbage can be problems. Large urban areas tend to have air quality issues (e.g., surface ozone and smog), so human health can suffer in large cities.
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diameter. Indicate whether the statement is true or false.
Globally, air mass thunderstorms are most common in the ________
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).
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a. True b. False Indicate whether the statement is true or false
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