Automobile Air Pollution

Automobile Air Pollution

Efforts to improve the standard of living for humans, through the control of nature and the development of new products have also resulted in the pollution of the environment. Much of the world's air, water, and land is now partially poisoned by pollution. Some places have become uninhabitable. This pollution exposes people all around the globe to new risks from disease. Many species of plants and animals have become endangered or are now extinct. The air pollution comes from lots of sources but the paper will be about air pollution cause by automobiles. As a result of tremendous amount of air pollution, primarily for automobile governments have passed laws to limit or reverse the threat of environmental pollution.

There are lots of sources other than the automobile for air pollution. Nature itself is one of the causes. Sometime nature causes the air pollution by activities like a forest fire, volcanic, hurricane. These are temporary dislocations that nature balances and accommodates to modern economic development, however, sometimes disrupts nature's delicate balance. The other source is from factories. Factories are release smokes and chemical in the air. In many places smoke from factories and cars combines with naturally occurring fog to form smog and create a midday sky. It had happened in London, "London, England, has been subjected to the danger of smog, long recognized as a potential cause of death, especially for elderly persons and those with severe respiratory ailments" (pollution).

Transportation by car though, is the major source of air pollution. Early in the century human invented, internal combustion engine, engine that use fuel as gasoline or diesel. Those engines were used to manufacture an automobile for fast travel from one place to another. Because they were not much in use, those few cars were not enough to threat the environment. Those engines were not fast enough so mastermind humans invented bigger and faster engines and those take more fuel. When these engines burn fuels they introduce smoke and other, less visible, by products. Once they are released into the air, the products of incomplete combustion, particulate matter (soot, ash, and other solids), unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, ozone, and lead, undergo a series of chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight. The result is the dense haze characteristic of smog. "Smog may appear brownish in color when it contains high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, or it may look blue-gray when it contains large amounts of ozone" (Danger). The cumulative effect of air pollution poses a grave threat to humans and the environment.

Smog causes number of children and elderly to die because children' lungs are still developing, also they breath more rapidly than adults, and they play outdoor. Most elderly people loose the red cells that cause diseases to go out of control. That lead them to the development of chronic lung diseases. " The costs of air pollution are enormous. The American Lung Association sites sulfur-dioxide exposure as the third leading cause of lung disease after active and passive smoking" (Justification)

Air pollution does not only cause health hazard but also cause acid rain to fall. Acid rain causes damage to structure or life. Plants and animal marine animal are most effected by acid rain. Acid rain or snow pollute the water and soil the major source for plants and marine species to survive. Acid rain or snow falls when sulfur dioxide emissions from exhaust of an internal combustion engine combine with particles of water in the atmosphere. "In Canada, Scandinavia, and the northeastern United States, acid rain is blamed for the deaths of thousands of lakes and streams" (Acid rain).

Another new and troubling form of air pollution comes from a variety of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, also known as CFCs. For many years it was used by automobile industries. These chemicals were used in the air conditioning systems of the car. CFCs takes decade to get in the upper atmosphere but when it gets there it combines with other molecules. Then, by attaching themselves to molecules of ozone, CFCs transform and destroy the protective ozone layer. The result has been a sharp decline in the amount of ozone in the stratosphere. "At ground level, ozone is a threat to our lungs, but in the upper atmosphere ozone works as a shield to protect against ultraviolet radiation from the sun" (Ozone). If the ozone shield gets too thin or disappears, exposure to ultraviolet radiation