1. Be sure to strong thesis sentence that begins with “This essay will argue that….” 2. Define air pollution and state the problem. Establish that there is air pollution and where it comes from. What air pollutants you are talking about, and where, has to be clear. Offer any statistics detailing the pollutants and go back and forth from the U.S. to other countries. 3. Air pollution is measured. Offer any statistics demonstrating which air pollutants are on the rise or are at levels above that acceptable by public health officials or law. 4. Specify what should be done, and what body of the government is responsible for doing it. Advocate a specific public policy. 5. Resources: needs 6 research articles 6. This paper needs focus, both in establishing the problem and advocating a public policy to address it.
Please follow the instructions closely. Make the problems is clearly stated not just a broad statement of issue.
Air Pollution
Today Environmental Health Organization concerns with all chemical, biological, and physical factors that influence the behavior of ecological agents. It encompasses control of human factors that potentially cause air pollution. By definition, air pollution refers to remittance of substances that produces detrimental effects on the natural environment. In the industrialized world, it has become a concern due to technological innovation that result from the production of heavy machines that produces fossil substances to the environment. From this perspective, air pollutants seriously pose serious health teething troubles: respiratory diseases, cancer, and other related wellbeing issues. In particular, it depletes the ozone layer, therefore, compounding glitches to global climate change and acid rain. The major contributors to this effect include tobacco smoke, radon, and emissions of chemical substances such as carbon monoxide. For that reason, this essay will argue that air pollution is an international phenomenon that causes serious health and environmental effects hence the need for rapid intervention from all relevant agencies.
Atmospheric pollution is a significant environmental issue we are currently facing as a society. As mentioned earlier, chemical agents are the major contributors to air contamination. From this perspective, human actions in the industrialized world emit substances such as particulate matters and organic materials to the environment, and this changes the composition of the natural surroundings. To illustrate this, technological innovation in an automobile is the leading donor to environmental damage through air impurities; this exposes inhabitants such as animals, plants, and human beings to health risks.
Importantly, to have the insight of air pollution, it is important to identify and classify air pollutants. Ideally, air contamination results from two basic sources: primary and secondary foundations. The former refers to impurities emanating from a direct human process, for instance, emission of sulfur dioxide from industries. On the other hand, the latter focusses on the reactions of primary sources. That is air pollution resulting from intermingling and actions of primary sources such as smog. It is a pollutant caused by collaborations of several major pollutants.
It is also important to note that combustion of fossils like petroleum, together with other combustibles forms the leading contributor to air contagion. For example, emanations from automobiles such as jeeps, cars grounds immense damage to the environment (Sitaras, & Siskos, 2008). Since the industrial revolution, human beings rely on vehicles for their daily transaction and transportation not knowing the effect they pose to the atmosphere. To another end, agricultural activities are the most hazardous agents of air pollution. In other words, the use of ammonia fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides emits chemical substances into the air that consequently causes water pollution. What is more, other activities such as mining operations possibly root environmental corruption by radiating dust and chemical constituents. In addition to this, domestic dusting products such as painting materials discharge toxic substances into the air thus, causing air pollution.
Notably, the atmosphere is a multifaceted, lively natural elaborate system that is necessary to the provision of life on Earth; this means that stratospheric depletion of ozone by air impurities remains a concern especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. In line with this, US fail to meet the quality definition of safety air by WHO that requires PM2.5 not exceeding 10mg/m3 and PM10 that is less than 20mg/m3. As earlier stated, air pollution is a global problem, especially in urban cities. For instance, as McAdam, Steer, and Perrotta (2011) posit, cities in Pakistan and Asia record extremely high levels of air contamination. In particular, Peshawar in Pakistan chronicled PM10 of 540mg/m3 while Delhi markedly documented 153mg/m3 of PM2.5 reflecting a violation of Air Quality Standards as envisaged by WHO. According to the statistics, coal combustion accounts for more than a third of air contamination in the America making the larger contribution to global warming and acid rain. To illustrate this, United States recorded approximately 89 tons of atmospheric pollution in 2014 that resulted in visibility impairment (Jeran & Khan, 2009). Besides, the country realized an upsurge of 97% of vehicle-travelled miles; energy consumption rose by 26% while the discharge of carbon dioxide grew by 17%. However, the total emissions of the air contaminants decreased by 63% between 1980 and 2014 (Schauer, & Cass, 2000).
With air pollution ever increasing, there is the need to reduce it and its possible effects on human health (Bandyopadhyay, 2011). From this perspective, both current and past studies focus on reducing radiations of impurities (Streets, & Waldhoff, 2000). However, little has been achieved on the same. Therefore, from a public health perspective the need for mitigation measures to the problem. First, the use of technological improvements can convince individuals to change their consumption trend by targeting specific sources of pollutants that cause contamination in the air. Second, community level- moderations actions can help improve air quality. Alternatively, technological upgrades on urban transportation system can lead to reductions in the production of air pollutants.
By curbing automobile-related air pollution, the government aims at reducing sources of both primary and secondary sources of contaminants. Since automobile pollution occurs in most urban centers, redesigning transport lines offers a sane approach to reducing the variability of pollutants. On the other hand, affluent taxation mechanism controls the pollution capacity of the firms by including social cost and benefits in the production models of the firms. In other words, the approach refers to pollution internalization, which incorporates the social cost of production. Alternatively, zoning method gets rid of factories within residential areas hence reducing health-related effects of associated with factories’ productions. Further, implementation of Noise Regulation Act discourages companies in discharging an annoying vibration that degrades the ecosystem (Li et al., 2004).
Overall, the establishment of Air Quality Act in most countries necessitates formulation of National Ambient Air Quality Standards that encourage people on the need to use conversable energy sources to reduce production of fossils fuels in the environment. Alternatively, public awareness of concepts of reducing, recycle and reuse reduces the amount of waste product into the atmosphere. More importantly, the government of most developing countries needs to shift to reliable energy resources; implying the use of solar panels, the wind, and geothermal energy sources for both domestic and industrial applications go along a way of reducing air pollution. Taken together, curbing of air pollution calls for personal, industrial, governmental responsibilities, as this will slack effect of global warming. Ideally, air pollution remains a challenge caused by human follies, therefore, to see better future; there is a need for personal responsibility in curbing the menace.
References
Bandyopadhyay, A. (2011). Air pollution control in ferroalloy manufacturing industries: an Indian regulatory assessment. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 17(2) 1-12.
Jeran, H. O., & Khan, A. R. (2009). The Effect of Air Pollution on Ozone Layer Thickness in Troposphere over the State of Kuwait. American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 5(3), 11-60.
Li, J., Guttikunda, S. K., Carmichael, G. R., Streets, D. G., Chang, Y., & Fung, V. (2004). Quantifying the human health benefits of curbing air pollution in Shanghai. Journal of Environmental Management, 70(1), 49-62.
McAdam, K., Steer, P., & Perrotta, K. (2011). Using continuous sampling to examine the distribution of traffic related air pollution in proximity to a major road.Atmospheric Environment, 45, 2030-2086.
Schauer, J. J., & Cass, G. R. (2000). Source apportionment of wintertime gas-phase and particle-phase air pollutants using organic compounds as tracers. Environmental Science & Technology, 14(5), 404-415.
Sitaras, I. E., & Siskos, P. A. (2008). The role of primary and secondary air pollutants in atmospheric pollution: Athens urban area as a case study. Environmental Chemistry Letters. 6, 59-69.
Streets, D. G., & Waldhoff, S. T. (2000). Present and future emissions of air pollutants in China. Atmospheric Environment, 34, 363–374.
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