Robert Orben once said, “There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.” Air pollution comes from many places. The smokestack in a factory, car exhaust, gas from paint, and producing plastic are only a few of the many ways air pollution can be caused. There is no doubt that we need air to breathe. Our lives depend on it. Having said that, society takes advantage of it, and with that, air pollution comes into play. Air pollution is becoming quite a big problem in society today.
Pollution destroys the living environment and threatens human existence on earth. It is no secret that we are causing the pollution that is harming us. Air pollution contributes to many negative effects in society such as the health of humans, the damage of crops and soil, and global warming. While it is mostly our fault, we have a choice and a chance to make it right.
The first way air pollution negatively affects society is through the health of humans. As humans, we need air to breathe. We breathe “between 12 to 20 times a minute, perhaps 20,000 times a day, millions of times a year, over and over and over again from the first cry of birth until the very last minute of life…” (Gardiner). However, when that air we breathe is not pure, sicknesses, diseases, and even deaths can occur. According to an article, “air pollution is equivalent… to smoking 0.4 to 1.6 cigarettes per day,' (Santoni). That being said, it is clear how big an effect air pollution has on us. An effect it has on us is giving diseases.
One disease that can become more severe with air pollution is asthma. More than 25 million Americans have asthma, which is 1 in 13 people (AAFA). With air pollution comes ozone and airborne particles. Ozone is a gas that contributes to smog. Like ozone gas, airborne particles trigger asthma as its extremely irritating to the lungs and airways. Not only that but it also reduces lung function. With asthma attacks comes many many emergency room visits. According to an article by Steven Reinberg, “For each increase in the ozone of 20 parts per billion, emergency room visits for breathing problems increased nearly 2 percent among children, 5 percent among adults under 65 and 3 percent among adults over 65, they reported” (Reinberg).
With that being said, one can only imagine how crazy emergency rooms can get. There are countless amounts of hospitals that do not have enough employees. If hospitals are understaffed, the workload of the employees can increase substantially which can cause mental or physical problems for them. Not only that but if there are not enough nurses or doctors to care for the patients, the chance of a patient not getting the medicine they need or their needs being forgotten or not prioritized well can increase. And if someone is diagnosed with asthma, then they are going to need medicine.
It is a well-known fact that medicine costs money, but if people can not afford that medicine, then that too becomes a problem. If people diagnosed with asthma do not get the necessary medicine or supplies needed to deal with it, then they are not getting the help they need and that can put them at an even bigger risk than before. Having said that, if people do not get help, then that is when deaths occur. According to an article, “Air pollution is one of the world’s largest killers, responsible for 6.4 million deaths per year (1 in 9 deaths), of which 600,000 are children” (Health Impacts of Air Pollution).
Air is supposed to keep people alive. That is its purpose. So when the one thing keeping us alive starts killing us, how do we stop it?The second way air pollution negatively affects society is through the damaging of crops and soil. Although some may not realize it, crops are a big part of our lives seeing as we get our food from them. That being said if our crops and soil are being affected poorly by the air, then we will not get that kind of food. Air pollution can substantially hurt the quality of the soil. When we pollute the air, we are also polluting the precipitation that falls into the soil. “Acid precipitation can alter the chemistry of the soil, which, in turn, can affect plant growth and water quality in a number of ways” (Air pollution: effects on soil and water).
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That being said, if the soil becomes acidic, its ability to preserve many essential nutrients, minerals, and elements decrease. This, in turn, leads to those same nutrients, minerals, and elements to be transported by water that flows through the soil, making it less available for land creatures to use. Consequently, when that happens, crops can also become affected. According to an article, “Crops can be injured when exposed to high concentrations of various air pollutants” (Griffiths). The effects of those air pollutants can range from visible markings to reduced growth, to premature deaths.
The injuries of these crops typically depend on how much concentration of pollutants there is, along with another variety of things. Now with all that being said, it is no shock that this is affecting food production as well. Ozone emissions, such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, are the most concerning for global food security as they react to form ground-level ozone. This, in turn, pierces into the plant structure and harms its ability to develop. An article titled “Air Pollution and Food Production” mentions that “ozone was estimated to cause relative global crop losses for soy 6-16%, wheat 7-12%, and [corn] 3-5%” (Air Pollution and Food Production). If there is a decrease in food production due to air pollution and food starts becoming scarce, this growing population of ours is going to suffer. With food production decreasing, but the demand for it is increasing, the price for said food will be increased as well. Those who cannot even afford food now are going to be at an even bigger disadvantage, and those who are barely making it by right now are going to fall into the lower category. If people are not getting the nutrition they so very need, then that can lead to deaths.
However, if the crops become polluted and unsafe to eat, there is a good chance that those handling the crops will serve and or send out the crops to be distributed anyway. Having said that, “...air pollution from corn production in the U.S. causes 4,300 premature deaths every year… growing corn causes annual damages to human health of approximately $39 billion dollars” (Baise). People are going to be dying from not getting food as well as getting it. In that case, no one will feel safe.The last way air pollution negatively affects society is through global warming. Global warming itself is a huge issue in the world today. It has many causes, the biggest of them all being able to fit in the category of air pollution. Air pollution includes greenhouse gases.
Some examples of these gases include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide. Greenhouse gases cause global warming by trapping heat from the Sun in the Earth’s atmosphere. They are a natural part of Earth’s atmosphere, but the amount in our atmosphere has increased. The increase comes from car exhaust and pollutants released from smokestacks at factories and power plants. With greenhouse gases come greenhouse effects. Without this effect, the earth would be below freezing. When heat is being radiated into the earth’s atmosphere, it is being warmed by sunlight. As the heat leaves back to space, the greenhouse gases absorb most of it in the atmosphere. Another air pollution particle that causes global warming is aerosols.
According to an article, “Tiny atmospheric particles - aerosols - are a subset of air pollution that is suspended in our atmosphere” (Does Air Pollution-Specifically Tiny Atmospheric Particles (Aerosols)-Affect Global Warming?). The article goes on to mention that these particles can reflect energy from the sun and or absorb it. The aerosol particles that came to be by human activities instead of natural activities have led to a loss of solar energy at the ground “by as much as 8 percent in densely populated areas over the past few decades” (Does Air Pollution-Specifically Tiny Atmospheric Particles (Aerosols)-Affect Global Warming?). In view of all this, the effects of these causes of global warming can become harmful.
The loss of mountain glaciers is one of the biggest ones. These glaciers are storing less water and melting more rapidly. In the future, sufficient water may not be available for an expanding human population and it would increase demand for food and potable water. Not only that but land subsidence is also a big one. With land subsidence, transport infrastructure, electricity supply, water and sewage mains, oil and gas pipelines, and buildings and bridges are at risk. Land subsidence is also likely to cause damage to the environment. Another effect of this would be an increase in natural disasters. Droughts, which affect farm life and habitat and therefore food production, and wildfires, which affect those same things along with risking the lives of humans, can increase significantly. All in all, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, air pollution is going to affect you in some way. Air pollution causes negative effects in society such as the health of humans, the damage of crops and soil, and global warming.
Air pollution can be caused by many things, most of those things having been done by us. Pollution can kill, and it has, but that does not mean it has to keep doing it. We as humans need this earth to survive, but if we continue to treat it the way we have been, it is not going to be around for much longer. At some point, the earth is going to become unlivable, but if we try and try to keep it as clean and healthy as humanly possible for as long as possible, we just might lengthen our time with it.
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