Here is our blog topic #4, pollution, proposed by Jolie. The following articles selected by your colleague need your attention before posting your comments:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008416,
http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=40404&ct=3983577,
and http://www.newstarget.com/020425.html.
I hope you will find them informative enough to compose a well-rounded reply.
As always, have fun,
Kinga
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15 comments:
Pollution is one of the many problems that our world is suffering today. And since our population is increasing 100 million every year, it is no wonder our planet is turning into one giant dumpster. Pollution not only happens in the United States it happens all over the world. For example: About 30 years ago in Honduras (were I am from) there was the river of Choluteca. It was the biggest, widest and most important river in Honduras. My mom used to tell me that when she was little her family used to go to the river to swim and have a good time. In present day this river acts as a sewer were both companies and local people. The river now runs tainted with pollutants with irreversible damages. But water pollution is not the only problem in Honduras. Farmers contribute to air pollution in Honduras. Most of the farmers are poor ignorant people who still burn the land in order to get it ready to farm. These farmers release so much CO2 in the atmosphere that they cover Honduras in smog. Besides that CO2 is poisonous to us it also creates a green house effects in which the heat is unbearable. Since Honduras is a poor country we do ot have such major organizations as the EPA who enforce these laws. Honduras needs help with pollution and it needs it now until it’s too late.
These are interesting articles that show radically different views about pollution problem between the political group and scientist group. Wall street journal article by pete du pont, a famous journalist, says the pollution problems, especially green house gas problem, turned out to be not that significant as scientists warned before. In contrast, the other two articles by American lung association and researchers of New York school of medicine warn the potential hazard of loose revised standard for ozone emission and the danger of air pollution to the health of heart with specific evidences.
As shown in these articles, it is not easy to decide which group is telling the truth, or more precisely, which group is closer to the truth. In fact, it is not the first time that scientists gave false alarms. For example, decades ago, many leading scientists alarmed about the food shortage in future caused by population explosion and devastation of agricultural productivity. Also many scientists worried about pandemic spread of uncontrollable virus which can eliminate most of the human population. However, fortunately, these things did not happen. Also the arguments from political group are not always telling the truth. The argument from this group can be skewed by their political benefits or interests. Even though their arguments are based on scientific evidences, it can reflect only the part of the story that maximizes their benefits.
I believe the stories from the scientists tell the truth. However the interpretation of it should be done carefully. Even though the evidences are true, those are usually true only in very limited and specific situations. Thus it can give wrong prediction about the real world situations that are unimaginably more complex. Also the world is not totally driven by scientific evidences. Our living is more affected by political, economical and social issues. Thus it is very important to maintain balances and stand in the middle of the isle. It is not an easy problem that can be resolved unambiguously. As scientists always say, we need more data.
We all know that air pollution is the biggest problem right now. The waste gas or steam from the cars or factories not only can damage the humans but also the animals. In those articles, I know that air pollution can damage our respiratory organs and also can cause diseases. We all know that ozone keeps decreasing and decreasing, which is a gas that can protect us from the UV rays. All the governments and scientists try to solve the problems, and give us some ideas and some data. But the data can only help us to know what is going on before and now, if we want to change this bad situation, then everyone should work hard. Those bad things are caused by all the people in the world because most of us are careless about this serious event that might cause a big damage to us. We have to protect this world because this is our place. The more we have damaged, the more we are damaged.
Pollution has been a big problem since a very long time. We need to do a lot to control it.It is not an easy task.It is such a task where every individual will have to contribute. I do not need to highlight the hazards or the disadvantages of pollution because everyone is aware about it. All we can do is work towards it. It is one of the major problems. Minimise the use of cars,and sewage from factories.
Pollution is one of the world major problems besides global warming. Almost every country in this world suffers from pollution. The higher percentage of pollution, however, takes place most in industrialized country, where many factories and manufactures hold their industry.
Many centuries ago, after England started their industrial revolution, the air which was clean before, started to become polluted. Much black smoke was around and it gave one of its city name, Birmingham, the title "black country" for its high percentage of coal coking operations. This issue also turned one of a butterfly species which before industrial revolution was white in color into black because of the high level of pollution.
As you can see, this issue is serious and it has the possibility to turn the face of earth in the next 100 years. What would the earth become if our generation and the following couldn't decrease the level of pollution? There will be a new term for our planet, the "Black Planet".
It is very interesting that this week's topic is pollution, and I'll tell you why. By coincidence, a "climate week" is being held in Washington DC this week sponsored by George Bush and the American governement and as far as I know UN and other power countries are participating in it. It's main purpose was said to plan on reducing the greenhouse gases. Since there was the Kyoto Protocol but the US never was agreed to be par of it, this is like the way for the US to be internationally participating in reducing pollution and therefore work for the environment. The US never took part of the protocol because it did not seem fair for only rich countries to have more strict policies in emissions. However, after this week hopefully there will be resolutions for some of the biggest issues we face nowadays. Pollution is something that we can't exactly see with our eyes, however, it is something that tears down our world gradually and if we do not have anticipated solutions for it, we'd be in trouble (thinner ozone layer, global warming, general pollution that affects the human health, etc..)
Pollution is a huge problem that the world has. Mostly, pollution exists due to human activity. We have sacrificed our clean air, water and land for some luxuries and commodities. The lifestyle of the majority of humans pollute the atmosphere in which all species live in.
Technology has improved our lives and has created many tools that facilitate life in rural and urban areas. Cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, and many other machines help humans transport themselves and other objects from one place to another. but in doing so, we are releasing many toxics and greenhouse gases that pollute our air. This pollution does not only make the air we breathe unhealthy, but contributes to global warming as well as producing a hole in the ozone layer. The radiation of the sun is so powerful that the destruction of the ozone layer can cause destruction in our planet.
Air is not the only category that has suffered human pollution. Water pollution has intoxicated the water we need for drinking. It has also devastated life in rivers, lakes and oceans. As many people know, water has a cycle. When this cycle contains polluted water, acid rain devastates our forests, and only contributes to the depletion of life in our planet.
Pollution has had a negative impact in all the world. It has damaged the environment for many of its animals, including ourselves. Even though science and technology have improved our world, it is time to start worrying the consequences of our actions. There are various organizations that try to change the world and lower the emissions of gases and trash in the air, rivers, lakes and oceans. But not much is being done, and our world is becoming a dumpster.
I was kind of surprised when I saw the first article about the fact that green house gasses are actually not as serious as we have expected. I was interested in that article since it states completely different facts that I have seen before. I hope all the information in that article are correct, and hope human being are not main cause of the global warming as we have been told.
But even if we are proved that human being are not main cause of global warming, we still have to be careful about pollution and environmental change. Because the earth is influenced by pollution that is caused by human act, and we are somewhat responsible for it. Those effects could be our health problems as shown in the second and third articles,and also some changes in natural environment.
We need to take measurements to prevent environmental pollution in any way, such as setting stricter regulation or laws.
Artificial pollution has strided after the industrial revolutin. Facotries flew away un-purified smoke and waste water to the nature.
Problem is that the almost all pollutants stay and circulates the world. Acid rain ruins land, and the water absorbed by the land flows to ocean and kills sea creatures; and as land gets ruined, land creatures die, etc.
So in general, goverments in all the nations create pollutions are responsible for the pollutions made from the countries. Governments should convince or force Factories to have purifying systems with them, or governments have to provide them.
Since we cannot remove pollutions, we at least have to reduce the amount being made.
Pollution as we can see now is a big problem to our earth. This problem has caused irreparable damage in our environment and if the world kept emitting pollution like these days, our earth is going to be in danger. All the governments and scientists try to solve the problems, and give us some solutions and some data but these data and solutions are going to be useless if we do not use it. That is why we have to start changing now. As students, we maybe think that we cannot affect the rate of pollution because we do not own companies of burn land for farms but we can still make a little change for ourself by not smoking, not throwing garbages in the river, using environmentally safe stuffs and also remembering our friends to do the same thing like we do. Imagine if everyone in the world start to use environmentally safe products such as hybrid cars and recycled paper. The world will be a healthier place to live.
Pollution is the introduction of pollutants, wheter its chemical substances, or energy (heat, light and heat) substances, into the environment would result in deleterious effects of such a nature as to endanger human health, harm living resources and ecosystems, and interfere with other legitimate uses of the environment.
Pollution has been a hot issue for the past century, since it has also increased global warming, countries through out the world has began to take actions, to decrease the pollution damage as much as possible. Such as the Taiwanese government, they started to enforce the policy of having people to "buy" certain plastic bags for garbage uses, so that people would stop using the plastic bags, since the plastic bags would take on a long time to dissolve the toxic materials.
Eventhough one person's effort of recycling a plastic bottle may not seem to great, however, if we all start to give out the same effort, and reduce the pollution little by little, then it may result with a great and postice outcome in the end.
Nowadays, pollution is one of the "top ten" problems we have to deal with in our society. Where I live, in Spain, there are not a lot of factories or industrial complexes. But there are a lot of greenhouses; these are buildings chiefly of plastic, in which the temperature is maintained within a desired range, used for cultivating tender plants or growing plants out of season. A lot of greenhouses means a lot of plastic, pesticides and fertilizers. That is other kind of pollution. One bottle of concetrate chemical fertilizer can make one thousand liters of water unables to be drunk. The total amount of pesticide during a year in a greenhouse is three time bigger that the really neccesary amount. I believe that the main problem in the fight against pollution is making people aware of the risks. But I believe as well that this type of intensive agriculture has brought to Almeria the wealth that we now enjoy.
In current world, we are suffering from serious pollutions. Countless factories produce harmful pollution every second everywhere. And the pollution causes the global warming that we discussed before. Then from when the pollution has grown?
It started with the industrial revolution in England. By James Watt, 'steam engine' had created. This steam engine contributed to create the vehicles and factories. Its main material to operate is coal. By burning the coal, the steam engine can work. At that moment, this was innovation in industry and was popular because of its advantage in producing. But one big problem, it created, was pollution. Using coal produced plenty of air pollution.
People want convenience in life, and the factories and other technologies help us easy. It sounds like ambivalence. For ourselves, we cannot give up any one of these. And now the technologies take most parts of our world. The way we can make environment better is our interest. Try to use bus and subway instead of car, and try to use recycle products, these would be examples what we can do in life. In my opinion, each one of us needs to show little interest in the environment to be better.
There is no doubt that pollution has been a significant problem which is talked about so much by people today.
When we read newspapers, we often come across the word pollution. This word was not familiar to the people some decades ago. But now, it is a serious threat to us because. It means the poisoning of the air, seas, rivers and lands, which would do harm to our health.
There are many factories that bring pollution to us. We can not have fresh air in the morning. This is mainly because of the poisonous smoke coming from factories, especially chemical ones. In rivers, seas and oceans, there are industrial wastes. Some factories just throw their wastes into seas or let them flow into rivers. When people drink the water from such rivers, they get poisoned. Besides, there is rubbish from ships and when sometimes an accident occurs in an ocean, oil flows out from tankers.
On land, the accumulation of rubbish in the streets may dirty the city and ruin our health. This is mainly due to the improper disposal of rubbish by people.
If we do not fight against pollution, surely one day all of us will be killed. Some people like to put the blame on the industrial revolutions. On the contrary, the pollution problem will be solved only with the help of modem science and technology.
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