Stop Air Pollution
By: Reid Pehrson
Have you ever drove/flew over a city and seen smog covering the air? This is pollution and why I want to stop it. Smog is one of the most familiar forms of air pollution, but it’s not the only one. Not all types of air pollution are visible to the human eye and that might be why we keep polluting, and some contribute to global warming which is another major issue. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things.
Carbon Dioxide - (a greenhouse gas) is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things let out carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is considered to be a pollutant when the following things are used, cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. The past 150 years we have dumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Some of the other greenhouse gases include, methane and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These both have very negative effects to the Earth.
Methane - comes from such sources as swamps and gas emitted by livestock.
Chlorofluorocarbons - were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth's ozone layer.
Sulfur Dioxide - ( a component of smog) is another major thing that plays with Earth’s climate change. Sulfur dioxide can be a cause of acid rain, but also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, and this keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew out Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere and volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide and today people are.
After reading that it's sad to see how much people contribute to this. We could stop this with a little work like walking places so you don't have to drive your car, if it's close walk it could save lives. If we could dial down on polluting for a little we could see a change.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview/
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/air-pollution/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6502986/ns/us_news-environment/t/premature-deaths-tied-moderate-smog/#.V0Rcv_kwjIU
