ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the environmental problems such as those with water, climate, air pollution, mining, solid waste, energy, population, agriculture, urban growth, radioactivity, and biodiversity in Florida. The nutrient-rich sewage of Florida's 15 million people is dumped into streams and the ocean where it is too much for the natural ecosystems. Wastes pumped underground threaten the use of groundwater for drinking. The nutrients could be turned into a resource, valuable to agriculture and forests in appropriate quantities, stimulating the economy. Florida's richest non-renewable resource is phosphate rock, found in central Florida. The mining and processing have scarred the land. Products made and not reused accumulate in dumps that each year take up more and more land, draining wastes into groundwaters which are the source of our drinking water. Acid rain retards plant and tree growth, corrodes monuments, and makes sink holes by dissolving the underground limestone. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are depleting the ozone shield in the high atmosphere.
