Ian
priscilla 1The Worst Forms of Pollution
August 6th 2010 02:48
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring.
The Mother Nature Network put together this sobering article on the worst forms of pollution our planet is faced with today. Read the full report here.
In the wake of the Gulf oil spill, the harmful effects of marine oil spills are obvious. Birds, fish and other marine life can be devastated from a spill, and the ecosystems often take decades to recover. The oil is ingested by some animals, allowing pollutants to enter the food chain, harming fisheries and other industries in the region. Many people don't realize that most oil pollution actually comes from land-based activity. One way or another, oil has seeped into nearly all of Earth's ecosystems.
According to the World Health Organization, 2.4 million people die every year primarily because of air pollution. Urban areas such as Los Angeles, Mumbai, Cairo, Beijing and many of the world's most populated cities have the worst air quality. Air pollution has been strongly correlated with increased rates of asthma, and pollution from automobiles has a strong link to pneumonia-related deaths. One of the worst cases of urban air pollution happened in London in 1952, when about 8,000 people died over the course of a few months because of a single smog event.
The most common greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels has greatly increased since the Industrial Revolution. As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they cause overall warming and climate change. A few of the profound effects of rapid climate change include rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity and the melting of snowpack, which could threaten the world's fresh water supply.
Pharmaceutical waste is becoming one of the world's biggest pollution concerns. Millions of doses of drugs are prescribed to people annually, and even more antibiotics are given to livestock. Those chemicals eventually make their way into the water supply. There is a natural risk to human health, but the bigger fear is that the pollution will ease the evolution of superbugs — bacteria that are immune to antibiotics.
Many plastics are toxic. Vinyl chloride (PVC), is a known carcinogen, and bisphenol A (BPA) can disrupt endocrine function, can cause insulin resistance and it has been linked to heart disease. Plastics biodegrade slowly, in some cases lasting for hundreds of thousands of years. Waste accumulated from excessive use of plastics has become a worldwide problem. Gigantic islands of plastic trash have been known to accumulate in the North Pacific Gyre, the most famous of which is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.
*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia page for Pollution.
The Mother Nature Network put together this sobering article on the worst forms of pollution our planet is faced with today. Read the full report here.
Oil Spills
Urban air pollution
Greenhouse gases
Pharmaceutical pollution
Plastics
*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia page for Pollution.
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