Paving Our Way Out of Nature

It's estimated by the University of Georgia that Atlanta and the metro area is now paving over 55 acres a day, which is causing a reduction in trees, plants creeks and wildlife. According to experts from UGA, this is not good planning for Atlanta and will cause drastic effects.

Some of these effects include runoff from too much pavement and not enough soil to soak up water. This leads to flooding due to an increase in sediment and could possibly result in the pollution of bodies of water that lie near by. Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona are prime examples of polluted bodies of water caused by storm runoff.

An increase in pavemnet also worsens smog and low-level ozone by elevating the heat level after cars and industrial factories pollute the air. Since the pavement is ridding us of many tress there's less shade which results in higher temperatures and less trees also results in the decresae of ability to filter out pollution.

More development is due to the influx of people, that has caused a huge population growth. I remember when I was growing up in the 80s, our subdivison (not really a subdivision then) ended at my neighbor's house now there are several more houses and streets that have been added, just in the past ten years. And with more houses and people comes more shopping malls and etc.

But what do you do, tell people to stop moving here? Looks like a problem that can't really be solved; you can only put restrictions and guidelines on developers and make sure they follow through. All we can really hope for is that each person does their part to become more environementally conscious and conservative.