The Sources and Affects of Air Pollution (topic):
Air pollution is the contamination of the air by noxious gases and small particles of solid and liquid matter in amounts that can cause harm to living organisms. Sources of air pollution include: transportation engines such as automobiles, power and heat generation, industrial processes, and the burning of solid waste. The combustion of gasoline and other fuels in automobiles, trucks, and jet airplanes produce the most common pollutants, nitrogen oxides, gaseous hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide, as well as particles of matter like lead. When nitrogen oxides combine with hydrocarbons they form other types of pollutants, like ozone, peroxyacetylnitrate which stings the eyes, and nitrogen dioxide which forms when nitrogen oxides react with oxygen. In cities where transportation is the major cause of pollution, nitrogen dioxide colors the sky brown, because the nitrogen dioxide has combined with other forms of pollution and water vapor to produce smog. In cities, air is may not only be polluted by transportation but also by the burning of fossil fuels in industrial buildings and by the incineration of garbage, these types of combustion pollute the air with large amounts of sulfur oxides that cause damage to man made structures and kill plants.
Air pollution has affects the environment and the health of people in a negative manor. Sulfur oxides raises the incidence of respiratory diseases in people, and it also creates a form of rain that contains high levels of sulfuric or nitric acids that pollute drinking water, vegetation, destroy aquatic life and erode man-made structures. Air pollution may also possibly harm urban populations in ways too subtle or slow for us to recognize. The subtle effects of air pollution necessitates research in order to assess the possible long-term affects of constant exposure to low levels of pollution as well as determine how air pollutants interact with each