Wednesday, 11 July 2018

Invisible murderer; air pollution

What I read

According to “Why does India's air look different from space?” by Jonathan Amos (2018), Europe's new Sentinel-5P satellite was launched to observe air quality worldwide. This satellite is the most modern tool that can show the data of air quality faster than ever. From this satellite, it shows an increase in concentration of formaldehyde, a colorless gas that is released from vegetation, fires and polluting activities, in India and the surrounding countries in South Asia. It is the result of Indian use of wood for cooking and heating. Formaldehyde can also react with nitrogen dioxide and many other pollutants and sunlight to produce ground-level ozone which can cause serious health problems and climate change.   


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My response 

Since most air pollution comes from energy use and production such as burning fossil fuels, so the reduction of these fuels can drastically reduce the air pollution problem like the director of clean air project, John Walke, has said "The less gasoline we burn, the better we’re doing to reduce air pollution and harmful effects of air pollution and climate change." So, we all can help our world and ourselves by making good choices about transportation. If you can walk then walk, if you can ride a bike then ride. If you could use public transportation, then please use it without hesitation. Moreover, I think, buying our food locally can reduce the fossil fuels burned in trucking or flying food from across the country. Not only reducing the use of electricity and energy but we also should find and develop other effective and clean sources of energy such as solar or wind as soon as possible and as much as possible as well. 

In my opinion, air pollution can be considered as an invisible murderer, because many hazardous air pollutants are colorless, transparent, odorless and soundless. We cannot kill or destroy them, thus they are very dangerous murderer to deal with. From statistics, there are more and more people who were born with an allergy. I am pretty sure that an allergy is highly related to the air pollution. Air pollution can cause premature deaths according to its increase in risk factor for serious pollution-related disease such as respiratory infections, heart disease, COPD, stroke and lung cancer. That's why I call it "invisible murderer."
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My question

We all have realized about air pollution and climate change for a long time, but the problem seems to get worse. Are there any resolved and effective solutions to this problem?   
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Reference

3 comments:

  1. I agree with your idea that air pollution is a kind of invisible murderer. Air pollution happens everywhere. Big cities elsewhere in the globe have high intensity of dust and this is harmful to our life. I In fact, this is sort of health threat. Before I began my full time job, I had never had dust allergy. After I began to working for 10 to 12 hours a day for 2 years in at the office where the air was not clean, my health was weak and I had allergy. Recently, I avoided sitting at my desk for long hours, and I go for a walk during lunch time, I go to run after work, and I go to swim at weekend. I do some exercise to help myself stay healthy. I think the possible solution to reduce air pollution is to grow more trees. I think we cannot avoid using fossil fuel or burning wood and use them as an energy resource.

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  2. Since cars remain major causes of pollution that harm others, perhaps the best solution is ban the use of private cars in cities, requiring that all people, from street cleaners to prime ministers, use only public transport. This might have the added advantage of encouraging great improvement in public transportation systems. It could be implemented in stages, perhaps by gradually closing main roads to private vehicles. Rama IV, which runs in front of Chamchuri Square would be much more pleasant if all those toxic cars spewing out murderous pollution were gone from it. The busses might still be polluters, but at least the quantity of pollution would be greatly reduced.

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  3. I used to think that people will use more public transportation, as there are BTS and MRT, but more new cars were bought every year. The new ones consumed more energy and the old ones are still used. The issue about alternative fuels or green clean energy have been raised for many years, it seems like nothing has ever changed for me. Coal power plants are still highly operating. Their process directly polluted the air as well. Anyways, because the energy demand is still high, so there goes a high supply as well. The world now is like a sick person which it would to take so much time to recover and it requires the human to take care. People realized about the problems but no strong actions were derived or seriously taken into account. In theses day, I cannot go out without a mask covering my nose.

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