Shillong, May 03: Air pollution is one of the important issue being discuss at different level because of its wide impact upon the world we are living. It is one of the biggest threats for the environment and affects everyone and humans, animals, crops, cities, forests, aquatic ecosystems and climate.
It occurs when any harmful gases, dust, smoke enters into the atmosphere and makes it difficult for plants, animals and humans to survive as the air become dirty. Millions of people die prematurely due to air pollution.It can be defined as an alteration of air quality that can be characterised by measurements of chemical, biological or physical pollutants in the air.
Therefore it means undesirable presence of impurities or the abnormal rise in the proportion of some constituents of the atmosphere. Some of the very dangerous pollutants are Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Oxides, Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Dioxide, Ammonia, Particulate Matter and Radioactive.
The constituents of air in the atmosphere are Nitrogen , Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide , Water Vapour , Dust Particles and many other gases. It is the imbalance caused by the increase or decrease in the percentage of any constituent of air in the atmosphere that lower the quality of the air and are harmful to all living things.
In our modern age of industrialisation and modernisation air pollution has been increased. There are two types of pollution man made sources of pollution as well as natural sources. Man made pollution include burning of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, natural gas, crude oil, diesel etc release smoke in almost every process of industrialisation, manufacturing, transport, energy generation,vehicles, etc . In rural areas it is the unchecked crop burning.
Natural pollution include forests fires, dust storms, volcanic eruptions and gases released from the body of living beings . All these release harmful pollutants into the atmosphere, endangered all living things around.
Air pollution has a major impact on the process of plants evolution by preventing photosynthesis in many cases with serious consequences for the purification of the air we breathe. It also contributes to the formation of acid rains, frost, snow, fog which are released during combustion of fossil fuels and transformed by contact with water steam in the atmosphere.
It is a major contributor to Global Warming and Climate Change. In fact, the abundance of Carbon Dioxide in the air is one of the greenhouse effect.
Normally the presence of greenhouse gases should be beneficial for the planet because they absorbed the infra red radiation produced by the surface of the earth. But the excessive concentration of these gases in the atmosphere is the cause of the recent climate change.
Our continual exposure to air pollutants is responsible for the deterioration of human health. It is indeed a significant risk factors for human health conditions, causing allergies, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases as well as lung damage. We may come across the problem of air pollution in major cities in the world and in our country especially the National Capital and others.
It is very important to take measures to control air pollution by moving away from fossil fuels, replacing them with alternative energies like solar, wind and geothermal. Shifting to electric vehicles and promoting shared mobility ( i.e carpooling and public transport) as well as using Compressed Natural Gas instead of petrol or diesel.
Producing clean energy is crucial. But equally important is to reduce our consumption of energy by adopting responsible habits and using more efficient devices.
Another possible solution to reduce air pollution is to shift the manufacturing plants, factories and industries to remote areas with a low level of population. By doing so air pollution in urban areas decreases over time. These are some of the measures apart from many others.
The United Nations has taken serious note of the dangers pose by air pollution unless we control it. To create awareness among people that we can’t stop breathing but we can do something about the quality of air we breathe in every second of our life, it adopted ” Air Pollution ” as the theme of the World Environment Day 2019 Celebration on 5th June to be hosted by China.
