Georgia's Environment the Ecologies and Environment: From

Georgia's Environment The ecologies and environment: From the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalachian Plateau, Georgia is a very diverse state in terms of its ecology and geography. The state is the largest east of the Mississippi River, and its elevation ranges from sea level to more than 4,700 feet. The New Georgia Encyclopedia reports that there are five distinct "physiographic provinces" in Georgia: the Blue Ridge, the Piedmont, the Appalachian Plateau, the Ridge and Valley, and the Atlantic Coastal Plain.

In the extreme northwestern part of the state, the Appalachian Plateau has historically been a region where mining has taken place. That Appalachian Plateau actually connects some parts of Georgia with Tennessee and eastern Alabama. The cities in Georgia are located in the Piedmont region, which is highly industrialized, and includes the sprawling megalopolis of Atlanta. The "fall line" in Georgia is the place where the coastal plain meets the Piedmont; rivers and streams that flow across the "fall line" create waterfalls.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources reports that about 60% of Georgia is "heavily forested" (mostly pine trees) and hence, the state leads all states east of the Mississippi in lumber production. About 74.4% of the turpentine and resins comes from Georgia's forests.

The ecology of Georgia is impressive, with over 70,000 miles of rivers and streams, over 425,000 acres of lakes, and, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia has four and a half million acres of "freshwater wetlands." The department asserts that a "tremendous number of Georgians" enjoy outdoor recreation, and hence "…Georgians are probably more attuned to a clean environment than the average American." Human activities and Georgia's ecosystem.

That clean environment the natural resources department writes about isn't really so clean, according to a report from the Negative Population Growth (NPG) organization. More than 3.2 million Georgians live where ozone pollution has become so serious that it is "…unsafe to breathe the air." In fact Metro Atlanta is "among the worst violators" of national standards for ground-level ozone, NPG explains.

The "dangerously high ozone level" in thirteen counties around the Atlanta area has not been able to secure federal highway money -- to build new roads to help ease the notorious gridlock -- because Georgia has not come up with a plan to reduce pollution (NPG). Moreover, of the 74,542 acres of parkland in the state, NPG explains that 8,212 of those acres are "endangered" by urban sprawl, commercial development, and roads (according to the National Park Trust).

Two thirds of the trees in the Atlanta area have been removed for development (Georgia Conservancy). Global warming in Georgia. Tom Baxter, writer for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, reports that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named two power plants in Georgia as the "top two…emitters of greenhouse gases" (Plant Scherer in Juliette and Plant Bowen near Cartersville) in the nation. Greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) are the principal reason that the planet is heating up, and Georgia is suffering from it's own contribution to global climate change.

Construction on a big coal-fired plant near Columbus, GA was halted by a judge recently because it would emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide (O'Carroll). Georgia's ecosystem is being affected by global climate change, the EPA explains. The heavy ozone pollution "reduces crop yields and impairs ecosystem health." In the coastal regions of Georgia, "Sea level rise could lead to flooding of low-lying property, loss of coastal wetlands, erosion of beached, saltwater contamination of drinking water," the EPA points out.

In conclusion, while the state of Georgia has an abundance of natural resources, the evidence from research shows that human activity is causing a deterioration of the air, the water, and the land. As regards global warming, Georgia's ecosystem could be affected even more than other places on the planet because of the ongoing pollution from coal-fired electrical.