Air Pollution
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
6/30/20243 min read
When people mention pollution, what first usually comes to mind is physical pieces of trash on the street or floating around in the ocean. However, pollution does not only exist as trash but also in the everyday air humans breathe. Air pollution is the existence of unhealthy chemicals and particles in the air that can affect the wellbeing of living organisms like humans and animals.
Air pollution comes from many different sources. Usually, air pollution always comes due to human activities like factory emissions, planes, cars, and cigarettes’. Some natural sources of air pollution can include wildfires and volcanic eruptions although some wildfires are also caused by human activates.
As mentioned previously, air pollution can be unhealthy toward living organisms. Exposure to air pollution for a long time can result in stroke, lung cancers, itchy eyes, respiratory infections, coughing, and a harder time breathing.
Since air pollution is such a dangerous type of pollution and is very harmful to people, certain countries have implemented policies and ways to try and prevent air pollution and make the air in their country clean and healthy.
One example of a way countries have tried to stop air pollution is the Clean Air Act in America. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970 and amended in 1990 in order to prevent air pollution. It allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to take the actions needed to prevent air pollution by setting up the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. To this day, the Clean Air Act is a environmental law that has had a huge impact in it’s cause.
Another country were air pollution is a huge problem is China. The Chinese government is taking a series of actions to try and prevent the increase of China’s air pollution. For example, the government has removed the use of coal-fired power plants and has shut down other power plants that contributed greatly to China’s low quality air. China is also promoting the use of electric cars and some provinces have restricted the amount of cars on the road. China has planted about 35 billion new trees across 12 different provinces. Lastly, China has started up programs similar to America like the Air Pollution Action Plan that was launched in September 2013 which reduced air pollution levels in China significantly.
Lastly, in Europe, air quality standards have been set and are monitored for air pollutants and action is taken if the recorded pollutants is to high. Member States in Europe have also each submitted their own air quality plans and more then half of them have been implemented. Most of these plans focus on reducing the amount of pollutants entering the air,
In conclusion, it is seen that places all over the world are recognizing that air quality is a huge problem and countries are taking action to try and prevent more pollution entering into the air. Despite air pollution still being a problem, at least there are lots of efforts to try and stop it.
Sources:
1. “Air Pollution.” 2023. Education.nationalgeographic.org. National Geographic. October 19, 2023. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/air-pollution/.
2. European Environment Agency. 2023. “Ηow Air Pollution Affects Our Health.” http://Www.eea.europa.eu. October 18, 2023. https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/air-pollution/eow-it-affects-our-health#:~:text=Both%20short%2D%20and%20long%2Dterm.
3. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. n.d. “Air Quality Act (1967) or the Clean Air Act (CAA) | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.” http://Www.boem.gov. https://www.boem.gov/air-quality-act-1967-or-clean-air-act-caa.
4. Leung, Felix. 2019. “How China Is Winning Its Battle against Air Pollution.” Earth.org. August 14, 2019. https://earth.org/how-china-is-winning-its-battle-against-air-pollution/.
5. “Managing Air Quality in Europe — European Environment Agency.” n.d. http://Www.eea.europa.eu. https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/managing-air-quality-in-europe.