The following are its
consequences on humans and animal (s) in the environment;
A. SMOKING: Smoking in this context is
inhalation and exhalation of the fumes of burning tobacco. Until the 1940s
smoking was considered harmless, but laboratory and clinical research has since
confirmed that tobacco smoke presents a hazard to health. Smoke from the
average cigarette contains around 4,000 chemicals, some of which are highly
toxic and at least 43 of which cancer. Nicotine, a major constituent of tobacco
smoke is both poisonous and highly addictive same scientists noticed, however,
that hung cancer, which was rare before the 20th Century, had increased
dramatically since about 1930.
Again smoking also causes
wildfires and domestic conflagrations. These are uncontrolled conflagrations
that spread freely though the environment. Careless dispose cigarette or Indian
hemp stumps cause many unnatural wildfires. In wild areas, timber and forage
may be destroyed animal habitat disrupted soil nutrients depleted and value
diminished in the wildfires. Raped run off from a burnt but area can also
contribute to flooding while erosion if exposed soil can trigger land slides. The
American cancer society and other organizations initiated studies company
deaths among smokers and non-smokers over a period of several years. All such
students found increase mortality among smokers, both addition, experimental studies
animals showed that may of the chemicals contained in cigarette smoke are
carcinogenic.
According to Onuzuilike, M,N.
in his book titled issues in Health Education, Some of the problems
associated with smoking could be physical, social psychological, intellectual
or physical. In this regard Ama in his book titled Health Education for schools
and collages, pointed out that smoking can lead to shortness of breath,
recurrent chest infection and cardiovascular disease, as well as tooth decay,
bronchitis loss a appetite, loss A weight, peptic ulcer, emphysemia, vitamin B deficiency,
mouth and lung cancer. Babies bon to mothers who smoke during pregnancy are
also at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome.
Studies have found that
cigarettes are addictive because an unknown component of tobacco smoke appears
to destroy an important brain enzyme know as monoamone oxidase B. The enzyme is
vital for breaking down excess amounts of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that
triggers pleasure seeking behavior.
Even non-smoker are at risk
from smoking. Recent research has focused on the effects of environmental
tobacco smoke, that is, the effect of tobacco smoke on non-smokers who must
share environment with a smoker. The united states of environmental protection
Agency estimated that exposure to ETS, which contains all the toxic agents
inhaled by a smoker, causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths and an estimated 35,000
deaths from heart disease per year among non smokers.
B. OIL SPILLAGE AND ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION
Nigerian today is faced with increasing
environmental problem, and the basic disasters linked with oil spills have lead
to the need to protect the environment whole conducting oil operations.
However an oil pollution
incident of a high magnitude can cause damage to the environment, especially
where there is an existing environmental degradation from oil prospecting and
transportation.
According to Clark, some substances
that are toxic to aquatic fauna and flora are released and they are chronically
lethal in concentration of a new ppm (parts per million) and lethal in
concentrations of a few ppm. (parts per
billion). These substances phytopyhankton’s photosynthensis, respiration and
growth, kill or cause developmental abnormalities in zooplankton and the young
stages of many aquatic organism. Oil spill in water, kill Shelton and finish by
its smothering action and also ingestic oil may interfere with fish nutrition.
In shallow inshore sites, contamination may persist for years and also surface
organism are killed by oil on the surface of water, which limit gaseous
exchange and entangle the organisms. The NNPC spillage at Owa and Abudu in
Delta State in 1982 resulted in oil oilloged farmland and the death of economic
crops such as seedings of yam and cassava and the soils were no longer fit for
farming and streams were no longer be used for fishing.
It is worthy to note that
when there is a case of oil spillage, the cost of the impacts are much felt in
the environment, so it better prevented than allowed to occur.
C. ODOR - The character of the odor is
the actual description of what the odor smells like. This prarameter is
sometimes called the quality or offensiveness of the odor.
Non- Specific multi-systems symptoms have been
experienced in communities near industrial sites, waste water treatment plants,
agricultural science and hazardous waste sites. People frequently report that
chemical odors are making them sick. The symptoms includes headache, nausea,
eye irritation, throat irritation etc. A 1999. Study of infect use in potato
field showed that while health effects were not related to proximity of people
to the field, order perception was strongly related to the number of symptoms
reported, the length of occurrence of the symptoms and the severity of the symptom
D. CRUDE OIL POLLUTION - Crude oil is, and has for
some been the major source of national income. As a result, the environmental
hazard it poses often comes up against interest in the income has however
received some attention by our various governments since independence. The laws
have nevertheless proved largely inadequate and ineffective in the prevention
and control of oil pollution primarily because of misplaced government
priority. In all these and other cases of oil pollution, the effect were fairly
similar. It destroys the oil, farmland, crops and economic trees, and
dislocates human settlement which may be burnt it thereby results in the
disturbance of economic and social activities in unemployment, and thus
frustration and psychological effects in the effect in the affected locality.
It pollutes and poisons
fresh water streams and springs making them unreasonable by humans and animals
and also destroying and disturbing marine life. It makes canal, and water ways
temporally impassable in communities were such is usually the main means of
transportation.