Air pollution is taking a heavy toll in many cities, all across the globe.

Many people usually think about Chinese cities as the examples of excessive air pollution but China is far from being an isolated case of air pollution in cities. There are many cities in developed world that are notorious for extremely high pollution levels, in U.S. for instance Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

In most cases high traffic is the main source of air pollution in cities. City roads filled with cars and other vehicles release harmful pollutants in air that cause many adverse health effects.

In one of their recent studies the Harvard School of Public Health claims that air pollution is responsible for around four percent of all deaths in the United States.

Air pollution has been linked with many health issues, from breathing issues such as asthma to heart attacks. Even the short exposure to pollutants found in air such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide increases significantly the risk of heart attack.

Among the leading causes of mortality in developed world are cardiovascular diseases. There have been several studies that found the strong connection between the cardiovascular diseases and air pollution in several large cities of the world.

The studies have also linked air pollution in cities with acceleration of cognitive decline in older adults. Air pollution often leads to prematurely born babies, especially in areas in cities where there is a constant high traffic. Prematurely born babies are more likely to develop different disabilities throughout their life.

Asthma, the most common chronic childhood illness in developed countries is closely linked to air pollution in cities.

Tackling air pollution in cities is anything but easy because of the high traffic levels, particularly in large cities. Still, our health is more important than our cars and city authorities need to ensure clean air for their citizens.

We should always have in mind that clean air is one of the mainprerequisites for healthy life.

Posted by Ned Haluzan , 0 comments Labels: air pollution

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012

Why is pollution bad for environment?

There are many different reasons why pollution is bad for our environment. Before mentioning the most important ones we first need to be aware that pollution has many different forms meaning that it can negatively affect environment from many different aspects. Therefore the best way to answer this question is to go through each form of pollution and talk about its negative effects on our environment.

Water pollution: - Water pollution is bad for environment because it leads to decline of freshwater resources which means that there isn't enough safe drinking water to support nearby ecosystems. - Animals that drink water filled with different chemical and other harmful waste experience poisoning and deaths. - Water pollution can also lead to creation of so called dead zones where animals and plants cannot live due to severe lack of oxygen. - The longer exposure to water pollution leads to severe decline of many animal species and excessive water pollution can even lead to total extinction of species like this was the case with the Yangtze River Dolphin. - Water pollutants also cause aquatic animals breathing difficulties.

Air pollution: - Air pollution does big damage to our environment. Harmful greenhouse gases, for instance, not only pollute our planet, but also contribute to global warming and climate change. - Some air pollutants also destroy ozone layer, opening the door for harmful ultraviolet rays. - Air pollution also leads to creation of acid rain that can cause great damage to many plants and animals. - Air pollution also causes breathing problem for many animals, which can result in their deaths.

Noise pollution: - Noise pollution is often neglected form of pollution that can be pretty bad for our environment. Noise pollution coming from cars and industry can have negative impact on nearby ecosystem by frightening animals and changing their preferred habitats. - Noise pollution is not only happening on land but also in our oceans, mostly because of excessive offshore drilling. Sea animals such as dolphins and whales are among most affected species because they rely heavily on their hearing sense and therefore noise pollution can make their daily activities such as hunting for prey and navigation very difficult, which can lead to decline in species.

Pollution from oil spills: - Oil spills cause massive and long-term damage to marine wildlife. The scenes of animals trapped in oil spill are horrific to watch, especially birds once they ingest oil that covers their feathers as this causes serious kidney damage, altered liver function, and digestive tract irritation, resulting in deaths of many birds.

Nuclear waste pollution: - Nuclear waste pollution can occur during nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl and Hiroshima. This is a particularly dangerous form of environmental pollution because nuclear waste stays radioactive for at least 5000 years, and can lead to reproduction problems and death of many animals.

Soil pollution: - Soil pollution isn't exactly among most talked about forms of pollution. Excessive soil pollution can lead to serious water contamination and can therefore create huge environmental damage. Contaminated soil is anything but a safe place to grow food on because the different harmful chemicals can reach into the bodies of living organisms once they digest the affected food.

Light pollution: - Excessive light pollution can also have negative impact on our environment. Light pollution can negatively affect nearby ecosystems and disrupt the proper functioning of food web chain. Light pollution is especially harmful for nocturnal animals as it can disrupt their navigational ability.

Posted by Ned Haluzan , 0 comments Labels: pollution

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2012

How does pollution affect our world?

Pollution affects our world by making our environment dirty and unhealthy place to live in. In order to live healthy we need our environment to stay clean and pollution-free but sadly pollution levels continue to grow in many parts of the world.

The rapid industrial development often means excessive pollution and destruction of valuable nature resources. Its not that we dont need industry but we need cleaner industry that is more environmentally friendly.

Fighting pollution is anything but easy mostly because pollution comes from various sources and has many different forms such as water, air and noise pollution. Successful fight against pollution means not just finding the sources of pollution but also ensuring their frequent monitoring in order to prevent them from polluting our environment.

Air pollution and water pollution are the two most talked about forms of pollution because they cause the biggest damage to our environment and our planet in general.

These two forms of pollution do not only hurt our environment but are also doing tremendous damage to our health. World Health Organization reports that close to 2.5 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, while on the other hand water pollution takes 15,000 lives each day, mostly in developing countries.

Air pollution leads to different respiratory diseases and heart problems while water pollution remains the main source of diarrhea, a disease that is responsible for 1.5 million deaths of children each year.

Our vehicles and industry are the main sources of excessive air pollution in many parts of the world while the two main sources of water pollution are waste water and sewage waste.

Air pollution also contributes to global warming and climate change while water pollution leads to decline of freshwater resources and could lead to future water shortages.

Protecting our world from pollution means protecting the wellbeing of not only ourselves but also of our future generations. To protect the environment from the negative effects of pollution, many countries worldwide have enacted legislation that regulate various types of pollution but despite of these admirable efforts pollution still continues to grow in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries.

Each and every one of us needs to get involved and practice efforts that lead to pollution prevention and reduction. We simply have no other choice because Earth is still our only home.

Posted by Ned Haluzan , 1 comments Labels: air pollution, water pollution

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2012

How to solve water pollution issue?

Here are the things world needs to do in order to solve water pollution issue:

1. Strict laws and frequent monitoring of water bodies in order to avoid scenarios that include huge quantities of different chemicals being discharged either directly or indirectly into our rivers, lakes, and streams.

2. Better education of the people. People, especially the ones living in developing countries, need to be more educated and learn that water is the most precious resource in our planet.

3. Enable more funds to adequately treat waste water and sewage waste. This means at least the basic sanitation in all countries of the world. In India for instance 700 million people still have no access to basic sanitation (a proper toilet).

4. Frequent chemical, biological and physical testing of different water bodies in order to prevent water pollution from reaching higher levels.

5. Massive fines for industries and people that purposely dump waste and other chemicals into different water bodies.

6. More wastewater treatment facilities so that there is more water discharged back into the environment without posing threat to our health and our environment. World also needs to force wastewater treatment facilities to pull more pollutants from their discharge.

7. Decrease the amount of pesticides and fertilizers used in agriculture because advanced agriculture based on heavy use of different chemicals is one of the main factors behind growing water pollution issue.

8. Cleaning up polluted rivers and other polluted water bodies. Cleaning polluted water bodies is very expensive procedure but this is really a small price to pay when considering harmful effects of polluted water to our heath and our environment.

9. Better use of science. Science needs to focus more on finding the new "revolutionary" solution to clean polluted water bodies such as for instance using carbon nanotubes to clean polluted water.

10. Water pollution needs to be tackled at both regional as well as global level because all environmental issues are becoming global and water pollution issue is certainly no exception.

Posted by Ned Haluzan , 0 comments

FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2012

Why is pollution issue so important?

Pollution issue is one of the most important environmental, social and health issues in the world. The rapid growth of world population has been closely accompanied by the rapid increase in all form of pollution, especially air and water pollution.

World still lacks global unity needed to solve pollution issue. Some regional successes are overshadowed by ever-increasing levels of pollution in some countries such as China and India.

Pollution issue is important because Earth is still our only home, and pollution is making this planet dirty and unhealthy to live in. Pollution creates many diseases and causes death of many people all across the globe.

Air pollution, for instance, leads to problems with lungs and respiratory diseases, and long-term exposure to air pollution can even lead to cancer. On the other hand water pollution leads to different waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and can also lead to poisoning.

The environmental damage caused by pollution can reach catastrophic proportions and destroy entire ecosystems leading to death of many species and a big biodiversity loss.

Reducing pollution means clean and healthy environment but tackling pollution is anything but easy. Why? Because pollution has many different sources - industry, vehicles and agriculture. There is no doubt that our society needs industry, vehicles and agriculture but our society also needs less pollution which means that world is faced with the really big challenge of how to make these sources less polluting.

The big level of pollution in many parts of the world is a clear sign that our global society still has a long way to go before grasping the importance of our environment and our planet in general.

We need to take pollution issue seriously because ignorance is certainly not the proper way to go. The stakes are really high and world needs to wake up and start acting right now because environmental issues are constantly growing in both number and size.

Pollution needs to stop!