Pollution is a terminology that is used to describe the presence of some unwanted substances, where they can either be natural or initiated by man. The natural pollution include consists of pollution that are occur in their natural state where man has no influence and has no control over them, whereas man-made pollution implies the pollution that is induced by man and it can be controlled by man. Man-made pollution include sources like burning of coal in the process of getting energy and burning of fossil fuels in running engines, and this is caused by the human needs like in the manufacturing of products,cooking, traveling, warming ourselves among other needs. There are different kinds of pollutions and they consist of atmospheric pollution,water pollution and sound pollution. Atmospheric pollution is a kind of pollution that involve the emission of gaseous products into air which alters the composition air, apart from the the Nitrogen and Oxygen that make up air. some of the gaseous products that are emitted into the atmosphere are harmful to human beings and the rest of the environment too including animals and plants, because they lead to a poor air quality. Atmospheric pollutions normally carries the danger of making people sick by causing breathing complication among both human beings and animals, and also increase the possibility causing cancer. At some extend,some emission into the air that contain gases like carbon dioxide and Sulfur dioxide, normally come down in the form of acidic rain which has the ability of corroding buildings, damaging plants and causing water pollution which will threaten the survival of water animals like fish.
Atmospheric pollution is the major cause of global warming, which has become an international concern in the recent days. Global warming basically means an increase in temperature of the Earth,that is caused by a retained heat in the earth that results from the thickening of the greenhouse, where greenhouse is a layer of gases that allows some rays from the sun to come back to the earth in the process of keeping keeping the earth at a natural temperature appropriate to sustain animals,plants and human beings. The natural earth temperature is normally at 16 degrees,when the greenhouse gases are purely natural. The emission of gases into the atmosphere is likely to add more gases among the natural greenhouse gases, which will certainly thicken the greenhouse, resulting to more heat retained in the earth, hence increased temperature. Increasing the number of gases contained in the greenhouse,will definitely thicken the thermo blanket of the earth, which is likely to retain more heat in the earth thus causing global warming(http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1570000/newsid_1575400/1575441.stm) .
The natural greenhouse gases consists of carbon dioxide,methane,water vapor,nitrous Oxide,ozone and Chlorofluorocarbons ,which are capable of keeping the earth at its natural temperature of 16 degrees, but man made gases can be added into the greenhouse when they engage in activities that produce gases like burning of fossil fuels,animal wastes that emits methane and cutting down of forests. The cutting down of forests is quite indirect addition of gases in the greenhouse in the sense that, plants play a role in breaking down the carbon dioxide produced by animals, on giving out the oxygen that is used up by animals. The cutting of forests means the mechanism of breaking down carbon dioxide to form oxygen is quickened because there are no many plants to perform the role, thus accumulation of carbon dioxide which is likely to form part of the greenhouse gases, hence a thickened thermo blanket. The effects of global warming seem to be long lasting and its a situation that has been build for a quite longtime. Some of the effects of global warming include the following as discussed below; Global warming is likely to increase evaporation from the water masses, which implies that there will be heavy rainfalls accompanied with its dangers. Although rainfall is good, excess of it destructive because is likely to cause mass flow, soil erosion and to some extreme extend it may cause desertification because of tree uprooting caused by heavy pours. Mass flows are a threat to humanity and animals because they are capable of causing extensive physical damage, thus hindering development in the affected area. If it happens that the evaporations are long lasting then their occurs a large probability of having a extreme weather, characterized by heavy rainfalls, hence inconveniencing because all kinds of weather are necessary for general assurance of order on earth. There is a scientific projection , estimating that an increase of precipitation by 1% on the earth, it’s likely to increase the costs involved in catastrophic storms by 2.8%, which is a negative economic impact of global warming. There are additional costs that are incurred in trying to protect areas prone to floods ,thus a community is forced to incur costs that it could have avoided if they could taken a step of avoiding global warming(Joachim ,Camer and Blair ,2006).
Global warming has threatened the existence of Glaciers because they have melt down into water. Normally glaciers build up during cool periods but global warming has eliminated the cool temperature , which is not like the case during the 18th century. The world’s glaciers surfaces have decreased by 50%, due to global warming that has been accelerated by the increased human activities that emits gases to the atmosphere which later increase the thermo blanket(Meetham ,1952,). On the process glaciers melting,they always cause landslides, flash floods and at times their might be overflows in glacial lakes, that in the long end leads to fluctuations in the water inflows into rivers. Glaciers are very important is offsetting the dry spells in a given region, in the sense that, they melt and then evaporate to form precipitation. When a dry spell comes, there is a probability of their being no glaciers to evaporate to form precipitate so as to offset the dry spell,thus the possibility of drought withstanding for quite long.
The glaciers melting has increased the sea level and the increase in temperature normally increase its volume due to expansion. The temperature rise also have an effect of hindering the growth of algae in the seas and also in reducing the ability of the sea absorbing carbon dioxide on earth in the formation of corals and lime stone at the bottom of the sea. This is form of sustaining global warming because warming of the sea leads to less absorption of carbon dioxide into the sea, which worsens the situations as the unabsorbed carbon dioxide is likely to cause more thickening of the thermo blanket. It sounds as a cyclical problem that will be worsening continually as the effects are also the causes. The warming of seas also creates a conducive environment for the formation of acidic water , as a result of the formation of weak carbonic acid. Weak carbonic acid forms on warm environment when mixed with water(Weart ,2003,). The presence of weak carbonic acid in water normally lowers the PH of the sea water, which threaten the lives in the sea.
Global warming has a negative effect on the economies of the world in the sense that it has lead to these economies incurring unnecessary expenses that would have been avoided,destruction of property and fear of investors locating businesses in certain regions due to their proneness to global warming effects, increased insurance costs on covering assets against the risks associated with global warming,destruction of transport facilities,costs incurred in preventing the effects of floods,their is massive migration of persons from places where they had called home because the places are at risk from the effects of global worming like landslides,their is water scarcity in areas where glaciers were the major sources of water,their has been health complications that emanate from increased earth temperatures, and tourism attraction sites including the glacier lakes have been eroded(Tennese ,2004 ).
The has been a wide range of efforts that have been applied in trying to prevent or reduce the impact of the global warming effects and some of them include the following; governments have set research institutions that are expected to come up with the measure of handling the effects of global warming for example the Global Change Research Program in the United states that was established in the year 1989.Governments have organized means of providing climatic informations to the public and private sectors on then programming the best trend of handling their activities so as to avoid economic losses and more especially the agricultural sector. There has been control measure that are directed towards avoiding the occurrence or the spread of some diseases and more especially during the dry spell or heavy rain seasons. Various governments have instituted some programs which are after sensitizing the public on the importance of controlling global warming and advising them on the best ways of lessening the amount of gases emitted to the atmosphere(http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate-HIGH.pdf.).
From the personal perspective, the control of global warming should be done as in the measures that are taken in controlling any other externalities in the society that include imposing of tax and regulation in the production of some products. Taxes and in this case huge taxes should be imposed on substances that are likely to produce gases which accelerate global warming, like taxes on fossil fuel products. The imposing of this tax will definitely increased the prices of these the products that are made from fossil fuels like petroleum and cooking gas, which will itself make the consumers of these products to behave in certain ways which are aimed at consuming less of these products because of the budget burden contained in them. The high prices of these products will encourage the consumers to use alternatives for example they may decide to use electricity in cooking than using cooking gas given that the cooking gas is now more expensive compared to electricity,thus reduced used of cooking gases that will certainly reduce the carbon dioxide emission inti the atmosphere hence low possibilities of further global warming. The governments in which these taxes are collected,should should the funds from such forms of tax in subsiding the alternative products that don’t emit gases on use, and this will make them affordable to a large number of people on the process of trying to curb global warming. Therefore capturing customer behavior is the most important thing in controlling global warming, as they are directed in behaving in certain ways which are compatible with the process of reducing global warming.
Conclusion. Atmospheric pollution means the emission of foreign substances into the atmosphere. Global warming is an effect of of atmospheric pollution,and its simply means increase in the earth temperature that is caused by the thickening of the thermo blanket, also known as the greenhouse, which regulate the earth temperatures in retaining some heat from the sun rays. The thermo blanket thickens because of the production of more gases by human activities which makes it to retain more heat on the earth, causing global warming. The effects of global warming include increased evaporation rate that cause more precipitation leading to heavy rains,melting of glaciers,increase of sea level and acidifying of sea water that makes it toxic to the water animals,and it has negative impact on various economies. Although some groups does not see any negative part of global warming and this is as a result of different effects of global warming at different parts of the world, because others may receive it nice if for example their problem was lack of natural rain. Various efforts have been made it controlling global warming that include research institutions,public sensitizations and providing of adequate climatic information to enable various sectors made rational choices in avoiding economic losses. Imposing taxes on the products that produce gases that promote global warming will be the best way out of solving this global warming problem, although the future long run effects of global warming haven’t been clearly addressed.
Reference:
BBC World Service Website;Retrieved on 14th May 2008 from the World Wide web http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1570000/newsid_1575400/1575441.stm
Joachim H.,Camer W. and Blair T. ,2006, Avoiding Dangerous Climate,Cambridge University press,US, pp208
Meetham P. ,1952,Atmospheric pollution;Its Origin and Prevention,Pergamon Press,University of Michigan, pp4
National research Consul,2001,Understanding and Responding, Retrieved on 14th May 2008 from the World Wide web: http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate.HIGH.pdf.http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate
Tennese M. ,2004,the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Global Warming,Alpha Books,pp10
Weart R.,2003, the discovery of Global Warming,Harvard University Press,pp 102
