Air Pollution
By:Tan Wei Wei
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, 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 sulphur oxides that cause damage to manmade structures and kill plants.
Air pollution has affects the environment and the health of people in negative manor. Sulphur 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 , vergetation, 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 effects of constant exposure to low levels of pollution as well as determine how air pollutants interact with each other and other substances within the human body.
Air pollution is also causing the increasing damage to the ozone layer above Antarctica, as well as contributing to the depletion of ozone in the planet’s atmosphere. The depletion of ozone will...