Environmental Problems Part 2-Air Pollution

Environmental Problems (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Over the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other comparable period of time in history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). As a result, humans have created environmental problems, including depletion of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; global warming and climate change; environmental illness; threats to biodiversity; and light pollution. Because many of these environmental problems are related to the ways that humans produce and consume energy, we will begin with global energy use.

Air Pollution

Transportation vehicles, fuel combustion, industrial processes (such as burning coal and processing minerals from mining), and solid waste disposal have contributed to the growing levels of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, dioxins and lead. Leaded aviation gasoline is one of the few fuels in the United States to still contain lead, and it’s the single largest source of lead emissions in the country (Kessler 2013). Air pollution, which is linked to heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, kills about 3 million people a year (Pimentel et al. 2007). In the United States, 42 percent of the population lives in areas where they are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution (ozone or particulate pollution) (American Lung Association 2013).

Destruction of the Ozone Layer

The ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere protects life on earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. Yet the ozone layer has been weakened by the use of certain chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and spray cans. The ozone hole over the Antartic in 2012 was, at its peak, slightly smaller than the area of North America (Blunden & Arndt 2013). The depletion of the ozone layer allows hazardous levels of ultraviolet rays to reach the earth’s surface and is linked to increases in skin cancer and cataracts, weakened immune systems, reduced crop yields, damage to ocean ecosystems and reduced fishing yields, and adverse effects on animals. Despite measures that have ended production of CFCs, the ozone is not expected to recover significantly for about another decade because CFCs already in the atmosphere remain for 40 to 100 years.

Acid Rain

Air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, mix with precipitation to form acid rain. Polluted rain, snow and fog contaminate crops, forests, lakes and rivers. As a result of the effects of acid rain, all the fish have died in a third of the lakes in New York’s Adirondack Mountains (Blatt 2005). Because winds carry pollutants in the air, industrial pollution in the Midwest falls back to earth as acid rain on southeast Canada and the northeast New England states. In China, most of the electricity comes from burning coal, which creates sulfur dioxide pollution and acid rain that falls on one-third of China, damaging lakes, forests, and crops (Woodward 2007). Acid rain also deteriorates the surfaces of buildings and statues. “The Parthenon, Taj Mahal, and Michelangelo’s statues are dissolving under the onslaught of the acid pouring out of the skies” (Blatt 2005, p. 161).

Sources

Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015. Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington. DC: Island Press.

Kessler, Rebecca. 2013. “Sunset for Labeled Aviation Gasoline?” Environmental Health Perspectives 121(2): A54-A57

Pimental, D., S. Cooperstein, H. Randell, D. Filiberto, S. Sorrentino, B. Kaye, C. Nicklin, J. Yagi, J. Brian, J. O’Hern, A. Habas, and C. Wenstein. 2007. “Ecology of Increasing Diseases: Population Growth and Environmental Degradation.” Human Ecology 35(6): 653-668.

American Lung Association. 2013. State of the Air: 2013. Available at www.lungaction.org

 Blunden, Jessica, and Derek S. Arndt. 2013. “State of the Climate in 2012.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94(8): S1-S258

Blatt, Harvey. 2005. America’s Environmental Report Card: Are We Making the Grade? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Woodward, Collin. 2007. “Curbing Climate Change.” CQ Global Researcher 1(2):27-50. Available at www.globalresearcher.com