Environmental Pollution Control Measures

Despite growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment and successes in pollution reduction, even a cursory summary shows that things have mostly gone from bad to worse worldwide. Let’s look at the problems by category.

Everyone today contributes to pollution in some way or another. Daily routines such as driving to work or cooking release hazardous gases and numerous other toxins in the air. The same toxins released can cause harm to the lungs or even kill due to the carcinogens. Not only does the polluted air harm people but the effect to the planet is vast as well. Issues such as global warming, acid rain, and droughts are evidently linked to polluted air. Though pollution is not solely based in the air, many other forms exist as well like water, radioactive, and thermal/heat pollution. Yet the sad reality is, many people are exposed to it far more than others because of their ethnic backgrounds or for poverty based reasons. Communities with lower income

Developing countries tend to have “the most fragile environments” (Baker 197) which is due to the flow of resources dictated by the core. The core, taking advantage of the developmental level developing countries are on, exploit their lack of laws restraining harm to the environment, setting up factories causing even more environmental damage. Thus when comparing the environmental status of a developed country to a developing country there are major differences. These differences are the interaction of the people with the environment, in terms of needs, and the number of factories profiteering from the use and exploitation of natural resources. When this difference is identified then it is easier to assess not only the source but also to create laws prohibiting this exploitation and constructing programs to reverse environmental damages to specific circumstances, helping developing countries to move forward on the developmental scale instead of backwards. If this is taken into account then why is the source causing environmental damage, the core, not stopped? This is due to the dominant ideology stating that with infinite economic growth, eventually the sustainability of the environment will be achieved. The developing countries reinforces this by inviting and encouraging organizations to base their factories in their country which has immediate results, creating a smoke screen

Although thought to be “not a big problem” and “under control” by most people, pollution is making its way in being a serious and an unforgiving threat to society. Pollution a topic everyone hears and knows exists. What they don’t know is how serious of a problem it is already becoming. Many health issues are being reported now that are linked to air pollution and even the most severe weather places have encountered are linked to air pollution also. By society, not fully being aware of the true threat that pollution is making, it will only become a growing threat that they will be encountering.

Pollution has had a shocking impact in the atmosphere for including many irreparable damages to ocean life, serious health issues to human beings, and negative changes to the environment. Pollution is a man-made global dilemma which is increasing to a serious magnitude. Human beings, the number one culprit, seem to be blind to this matter. Humans’ inability to clearly see the problem they are creating, will be one of the causes for the world to be no more.

Pollution is not new to the environment, it has been seen for decades. Writers such as Plato, Dickens, and Engels have wrote about how pollution was in their own time. Although pollution was prevalent back then, in the past three decades the concern has greatly increased. This in turn has caused an increase in appreciation of the materials provided to us from the earth. Pollution itself literally means dirty. Pollution occurs when the land, water, and air are contaminated by the addition of harmful substances. An imbalance occurs in the environment which threatens every aspect of life in the world. In A Town Plagued by Water the egg farm of Samuel and Bertha Reich was a major example of this kind of destruction. When the egg farming didn't

1. According to Alexis Petru’s TriplePundit 2015 article titled, ”Pollution is the Leading Cause of Death in the Developing World,” 94% of this pollution problem is loaded on low-income poor countries.

The Economic boom from factories connection to air pollution is unconventional. The reason factories stay open is only for the monopoly it has over monetary distress. The economical perspective affects the health concerns beyond a doubt. Nearly 5-6 million people die every year due to an illness related to air pollution. The pollution is tremendously bad in China, which the people of China have to stay inside their homes with the windows shut at all times. China has faced their first “red alert” which has put a halt to usage of motor vehicles, and factories stopped operation. People all over the world are suffering from air pollution, some cases worse than others. Urbanization constantly grows each year which contributes to air pollution which has an immense impact on the

Environmental conservation has made major advancements throughout history. While its focus during the 1940s was very limited due to World War II, the effects of the war and industrialization led to the environmental deterioration and many significant events that increased the public’s attention on pollution. While many minor policies were passed as a way to appease the people, the major shift for environmentalism was during the 1960s after many pieces of writing were published that exposed the harmful effects of pollution and toxins that were contaminating the earth. The public’s outrage toward the government 's lack of involvement led to major legislations to be passed and a noticeable shift in importance to the government. While environmental policies were generally weak and unable to be consistently enforced from 1940-2000, a series of focused legislative acts led to a change in the standardization of working conditions through safety and health regulations and accountability of nationally funded programs on conservation of the environment.

many other are causes of our planet’s degradation. All these have been observed in our city,

Pollution is a serious global issue that has been occurring for as long as humans have inhabited the planet. There are many different varieties of pollution, as well as an abundance of materials, both natural and synthetic, that the earth has been contaiminated with. Shifrin ( 2005), states: “To date, wastes remain a fact of life and there are only three places to dispose of wastes-air, water, or land. Waste management always involves tradeoffs.” (p. 676). Even though Shifrin is correct in his analysis, it does not excuse the amount of environmental poison that continues to exist today, nor the amount of environmental problems that it has caused throughout history. The “tradeoffs” of pollution have devastated entire communities, causing waves of sickness and death in their wake. According to Shifrin (2005):” Water-borne contagious disease still caused devastating epidemics in the early 1900s, compounded by growing, congested populations. Air pollution also grew to a high priority by midcentury because its impact was so observable and immediate.” (p. 676). Generally, these diseases were spread through poor sanitary practices as well as the overwhelming volume of pollution that was generated by so many indivduals with little knowledge about what the adverse effects on the overall environment would be.

Additionally, many environmentalists argue that consumerism has severe affects on the environment and blame it for many issues society is currently facing. Some major concerns about consumerism are that it can cause pollution, land contamination, and forest degradation. The production and waste of products used in consumption is related to pollution. Industrial waste and automobiles are primary examples, as well as waste from industrial agriculture and individual consumer waste. A main issue that exists is the exporting of pollution and waste from developed countries to poorer countries, a process which is done due to the fact that poorer countries have lower standards or exempt from the emission reduction targets (Shah, 2010). Similarly, according to the Chief economist for the World Bank Larry Summers the World Bank should be encouraging more migration of dirty industries to less developed countries, ironically the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is perfect, however there are many countries in Africa that are vastly under-polluted. Their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to city like, Los Angeles or Mexico City (Robbins, 1999). According to Larry Summers,

The global pollution is one of the major hazards human civilization is confronted with at present. Few issues in the history of mankind had such a pronounced and universal effect on the entire population of our planet, its environment, flora and fauna. Pollution is a problem that also needs to be analyzed and handled in terms of its perspectives in the future, both short- and long-term. Pollution is defined as the process and result of the introduction of foreign, contaminating substances into natural environment that have a potential of damaging the environment or human health (Briggs 2). It has diverse forms including air, soil and water pollution, radioactive contamination, littering, thermal and some other kinds of pollution. Climate change is the direct and most alarming consequence of the global pollution, with greenhouse effect and global warming being its most evident outcomes. Global pollution has various forms and many negative consequences that should be recognized, studied and controlled by the global community.

Pollution has become a prevalent issue worldwide and has begun to affect the air used to breathe, the soil used to grow food, and the water used to drink. All of these effects result in commonly occurring destruction of health and wildlife that one may have seen on the news or heard from peers. In order to live, one needs food, water, clothing, and shelter. If the water and food that society consumes gets contaminated, a major component of life has been eradicated, which can only have negative consequences. If more people are educated as to what effects the environment, the world has a chance to counteract the effects of pollution. The main causes of pollution are the burning of fossil fuels such as with car exhausts, littering as a result of societal norms and laziness, and factory waste as a result of lax waste regulation, and can result in mass destruction of the environment and catastrophic effects on the everyday lives of contemporary people.

Pollution is the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. It is a major problem in America and as well as the world. Pollution not only damages the environment, but damages us also. It has cause many problems ranging from lung cancer to the greenhouse effect. It is all among us but we continue to live in our own filth. What is the reason behind this flawed logic? In this paper I will examine the problems and solutions for this issue.