Environmental Science - Air Pollution

Environmental Science
Dr Larsen
07/27/10
Air pollution

Air pollution has been a problem for years and has caused many infections and depletion of the natural environment. The most recognized depletion is the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. Pollution has caused this and has been reason for the increase in human health problems. Indoor air pollution and urban air quality are listed as two of the world's worst pollution problems in the 2008 Blacksmith Institute World's Worst Polluted Places report. Pollutants cans either be primary or secondary. Primary meaning they are usually substances directly emitted from a process, such as ash from a volcanic eruption. On the other hand, secondary pollutants are not emitted directly but are formed when primary pollutants react or interact. A good example would be many secondary pollutants that make up photochemical smog. Some pollutants can be secondary and primary at the same time. For this to happen, they both emitted directly and formed from other primary pollutants. 4% of deaths in the United States are due to air pollution according to the Environmental Science Engineering Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. Here are some pollutants produced by human activity and how they can be produced. • Sulfur oxides are produced by volcanoes and many other industrial processes. Due to coal and petroleum often containing sulfur compounds, combustion can cause sulfur dioxide. Its formula is SO2. • Nitrogen oxides are emitted from high temperature combustion like nitrogen dioxide. Nitrogen dioxide, NO2, is one of the most prominent air pollutants. • Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that is colorless, odorless, and non-irritating. It’s produced through incomplete combustion of fuel such as natural gas, coal or wood. Cities around the world with high exposure to air pollutants have the possibility of children living within them to develop asthma, pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections as well as a low initial birth rate. The Clean Air act was passed in 1970 to enforce clean air standards which helped improve human health and longer life spans. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 proposed emissions trading, added provisions for addressing acid rain, ozone depletion and toxic air pollution, and established a national permits program. These amendments established new auto gasoline reformulation requirements, set Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) standards to control evaporative emissions from gasoline and mandated that the new gasoline formulations be sold from May-September in many states. Pollution has affected the world for many years and continues to do so. Efforts have been made to slow down pollution because it continues to deteriorate our environment, but the government needs to dig deeper and seek more ways in which to reduce pollution.