To know what are the most important environmental consequences of global air pollution, any modern person should. Responsibility of scientists, ecologists, industrialists is especially great, but simple townsfolk should be guided in this matter. In many respects, public awareness creates pressure on industrial enterprises, forcing them to take a more responsible approach to organizing work and reducing emissions. Knowing all the causes and consequences, people will understand how important it is to protect the world in which we live.
What is it about?
To understand what are the most important environmental consequences of global air pollution, it should be understood that this term is customary to denote. Current science suggests the inclusion of additional ingredients that are not characteristic of it into the air of our planet as atmospheric pollution. These may be chemical or biological in nature. Physical contamination is possible . To the same phenomenon belongs a change in the level of content of various elements relative to what should be normal.
WHO experts organized research activities to determine the effects of pollution. In 2014, as managed to calculate, only atmospheric pollution caused the death of approximately 3.7 million people. In total, deaths caused by such pollution amount to about seven million annually, if we take into account the effect on air masses not only outside buildings, but also indoors. WHO has an international organization dedicated to the study of cancer. Her work has proved that atmospheric pollution is the main cause of malignant pathologies. Additional studies of this problem were organized by American specialists from Austin University of Texas. As they found, global atmospheric pollution is causing a reduction in human life by about a year.
Atmospheric pollution: what happens?
To describe briefly the environmental consequences of air pollution, you should first consider what it happens. Modern scientists distinguish the anthropogenic and natural aspects of the problem. They are physical, chemical and biological. The first involves mechanical inclusion in the environment, radiation, noise, electromagnetic waves, including radio emission. The physical category includes heat emissions. Chemical atmospheric pollution includes aerosols, substances in gaseous form. Currently, carbon monoxide is most often polluted. No less significant are nitric oxides, heavy metal impurities, sulfur dioxide, aldehydes and hydrocarbons. The environment is polluted by dust emissions, radioactive elements and ammonia.
Biological atmospheric pollution is caused by microbes that are dangerous to the world. The air becomes dirtier due to vegetative forms, numerous viral, bacterial, fungal spores, toxins. The environment around us is poisoned by the vital products of these microorganisms.
Sources
The environmental consequences of air pollution arise not only from human activities. There are natural sources - natural pollution paths, including fires, dust and volcanic activity, pollen and organic matter from various life forms. Artificial sources are man-made. They are usually divided into several categories. Extremely important transport that generates volumetric emissions. Not only cars familiar to the modern person are dangerous, but also trains, sea and river vessels, air vehicles. Industrial pollution is due to the activity of technological processes. This category includes atmospheric pollution due to heating. Finally, the household type is associated with everyday processes, for example, the combustion of fuel in a person’s house. Domestic sources are due to the processing of waste generated in the course of human life.
The environmental effects of air pollution are to some extent due to mechanical emissions in the form of dust. This is generated in the work of cement enterprises, furnaces, thrown out of boiler rooms and furnaces. When oil and petroleum products are burned, soot is formed. During operation, car tires are erased. All this pollutes the environment. The chemical category includes those compounds that are characterized by the ability to react.
Is it possible to change something and is it necessary?
Since the environmental consequences of air pollution have attracted the attention of scientists for more than a decade, it was decided at the international level to organize a special program to combat the problem. One of the promising ways proposed by experts was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For the first time, an agreement on this issue was concluded in 97th. It was then that the Kyoto Protocol was formed. The documentation brought together many of the powers of our planet that are at a sufficient level of development so that people and industry actively use systems, technology that generates carbon dioxide.
It is difficult to overestimate the relevance of the fight against the environmental consequences of air pollution (cities, other settlements and other territories of the planet). Atmospheric pollution greatly affects humans. The vital activity of microscopic, plant, animal life forms is disrupted. This phenomenon globally affects the biosphere and becomes a source of economic damage.
Human and nature
Considering what the most important environmental consequences of global air pollution are especially significant for humans, it should be noted the impact on the level of health. Research has been conducted to prove how much impact humanity has. A study of industrial centers, which are characterized by low air quality, showed a high incidence of people, especially pronounced in the children's age category and among the elderly. Atmospheric pollution leads to greater mortality. Smoke, soot particles contained in the air absorb the light of the sun, there is a loss of a certain percentage of ultraviolet radiation, which is important for the health of not only humans, but also many animals. The lack of such radiation provokes vitamin deficiency and initiates rickets. The dirtier the air, the higher the likelihood of irritation of the tissues of the respiratory system, and this leads to pulmonary emphysema. Residents of contaminated areas are more likely to have bronchitis, asthma.
Considering the environmental effects of air pollution, one cannot ignore the effect of carcinogenic compounds on human health. Such inclusions can initiate malignant processes in the human body. Cancer-provoking compounds are generated as a result of incomplete fuel combustion. They are distinguished by cars with gases, air transport. Carcinogens are hazardous industrial wastes that appear in the process of fuel combustion. Gaseous substances formed during the industrial transformation of oil are no less significant.
Man: what else is dangerous?
Atmospheric pollution includes radiation. The most active relative to life forms of radiation - gamma and x-ray. Strontium is dangerous for human health. This substance accumulates in the musculoskeletal system. Its accumulation provokes malignant processes. Strontium pollution in the environment in which a person lives is highly likely to cause bleeding. Other serious pathologies may form.
How to notice?
For a specific person, the environmental consequences of global air pollution are expressed in poor health. Many suffer from headaches, others feel sick, the body as a whole responds with weakness. People living in pollution become less efficient, and over time they completely lose their ability to work. The body is less active in resisting infectious agents. Bad smell, an abundance of dust, noise in the environment around, other pollutants provoke a general state of discomfort, negatively affecting the mental human status.
Animals suffer from the pollution of the world no less than humans. Among the environmental consequences of global air pollution is the loss of hazardous compounds that affect different organisms. Mostly the route of entry is through the respiratory system and with food, including vegetation contaminated with dust. Poisoning of animals is not only acute, but also for a long time proceeding in a chronic form. Under their influence, the individual becomes ill, body weight decreases, appetite worsens. Possible death of cattle. This phenomenon is often recorded among wild animals. Against the background of atmospheric pollution, the genetic fund is changing, the changes are inherited. This is more likely in conditions of radioactive contamination. Various substances that reduce the quality of the atmosphere, react with parts of the biosphere, affect natural processes, and polluting components enter organisms through vegetation, liquid.
Atmosphere and plants
The most important environmental consequences of global air pollution include the impact on the plant world. In many respects, the development of such life forms is due precisely to clean air. The effect on plants is determined by the nature of the polluting compound and the concentration of this substance in the medium. In many ways, the results of the influence are corrected by the duration of the contact and the susceptibility of a particular form. The stage of development of a living organism plays a role. To notice damage, it is usually sufficient to examine the plant from the outside. The physiological sign is pollution. This is usually caused by soot and ash, cement dust, iron oxides.
The vegetation growing in large settlements is polluted by an integrally diverse toxic compounds. Such life forms most strongly perceive sulfur dioxide and compounds, including fluorine and chlorine molecules. The ecological consequence of local and global atmospheric pollution with these substances as applied to vegetation is a slowdown in the growth and development of such forms, a gradual death.
Relevance for a person
Not only the environment, but also human activity suffers from the environmental consequences of air pollution by vehicles, industrial facilities and other factors mentioned above. The national economy is losing a lot from the deterioration of air quality. Structures made of metal quickly collapse under the influence of aggressive inclusions, roofs, facades of objects suffer, and the quality level of the manufactured product worsens. The higher the concentration of sulfur, nitrogen, carbon oxides, the faster the destruction of materials used in construction. Metallic corrosion is richer and more aggressive. In an industrialized village, steel is susceptible to rust two dozen times stronger. For aluminum, the rate of destruction is a hundred times greater when compared with objects in rural areas.
For utilities, the most important environmental consequence of global air pollution is also damage to structures, facilities and structures. The social infrastructure and the cultural sphere of human settlements are suffering. Destruction of historical objects, architectural monuments is observed. In a word, any object and product, structure, located in the open air, if there is atmospheric pollution, suffer.
Agriculture and Ecology
It is very difficult to assess the environmental consequences of anthropogenic pollution of the atmosphere with regard to the agricultural sector. Studies have shown a relationship between crop shortages and the presence of aggressive components in the air. Phenol and dust inclusions are negatively affected. Sulphurous anhydride pollution is strongly affected. As statistical studies have shown, such phenomena are especially pronounced when considering crops harvested from winter wheat fields. If you clean the air so that the dust content decreases by 0.1 mg / m3, the yield will be more significant by 0.36 centners per hectare sown.
The deterioration of air quality, as well as other aspects of the environment, reduces livestock productivity.
Key implications
There are several main environmental consequences of air pollution: the greenhouse effect, smog, violation of the integrity of the ozone layer, rain with high acidity.
The greenhouse effect is a term used to denote the temperature growth of the lower atmospheric layer. This becomes higher than the normal effective radiation level of the planet, noticeable when exploring from space. The radiation flux from the side of the Sun is stable, so the thermal planetary balance becomes a key factor determining the average annual heating of the surface, and at the same time - the climate. In order for the balance to remain adequate, the absorption of radiation from short waves and the emission of long waves should be equivalent. The absorption of short waves depends on the albedo of the planet. The greenhouse effect corrects the situation. It depends on the temperature of our atmosphere and the components that form it.
Precipitation can be in the form of rain, but not only. These include hail, nebula and snow. A common parameter that combines all such phenomena is a decrease in the balance of acidity and alkalinity due to the inclusion of additional elements in the atmosphere. The cause is usually acidic oxides, mainly nitric and sulfuric.
About precipitation in more detail
As an environmental consequence of air pollution, acid rain requires special attention. Studies have shown that even in the absence of aggressive inclusions, a slightly acidic reaction is inherent in rainwater. It is due to carbon dioxide present in the air. Acid precipitation is explained by the interaction of water and sulfur, nitrogen components. Substances of this type fall into the environment due to the activity of machines, industrial facilities, including metallurgical ones. Sulfur substances, native sulfur and compounds giving a similar effect of pollution are observed in ore, coal, and are found in hydrogen sulfide.
Nitrogen compounds are observed in peat, coal. The combustion process of such substances leads to the generation of nitrogen oxides that can become acidic solutions. With precipitation, they fall on the ground.
Ozone and ecology
Atmospheric pollution leads to the formation of an ozone hole. The term denotes a local decrease in the ozone content in the atmospheric layer of our planet. In the theory, which is currently considered the main one, the anthropogenic factor is defined as the main one influencing the state of this layer. The imbalance is due to the release of freons, which contain molecules of bromine, chromium. Particularly curious in aspects of this phenomenon is the report of WMO (an organization internationally involved in meteorology). It provides clear evidence of the dependence of the quality and thickness of the ozone layer on emissions into the environment. The thinner this gas cover of the planet, the more active radiation gets on its surface. The result is an increase in the incidence of cancer, mainly skin. A high radiation level affects society, flora and fauna.
Humanity is taking measures to limit the penetration of hazardous compounds into the atmosphere. The idea of switching to freons containing fluorine is being promoted. The restoration of the layer, if it is possible to completely abandon the most aggressive emissions, will take several decades. This is largely due to the large accumulated volumes of aggressive compounds. Presumably, the ozone hole may be delayed by the middle of the current century.