My LifeEssay Preview: My LifeReport this essayPollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms.[1] Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring; when naturally occurring, they are considered contaminants when they exceed natural levels. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. The Blacksmith Institute issues annually a list of the worlds worst polluted places. In the 2007 issues the ten top nominees are located in Azerbaijan, China, India, Peru, Russia, Ukraine and Zambia.[citation needed]
In the late industrial age, the term overpollution was common, representing a view that was both critical of industrial pollution, but likewise accepted a certain degree of pollution as nominal industrial practice.[citation needed]
Contents [hide]1 Ancient cultures2 Official acknowledgement3 Modern awareness4 Forms of pollution5 Pollutants6 Sources and causes7 Effects7.1 Human health7.2 Environment7.3 Environmental health information8 Regulation and monitoring9 Pollution control9.1 Practices9.2 Pollution control devices10 Perspectives11 Greenhouse gases and global warming12 See also13 References14 External links[edit]Ancient culturesAir pollution has always been with us. In quote Soot found on ceilings of prehistoric caves provides evidence of the high levels of pollution associated with inadequate ventilation of open fires.[2] The forging of metals appears to be a key turning point in the creation of significant air pollution levels outside the home. Core samples of glaciers in Greenland indicate increases in pollution associated with Greek, Roman and Chinese metal production.[3]
[edit]Official acknowledgementThe earliest known writings concerned with pollution were written between the 9th and 13th centuries by Persian scientists such as Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and al-Masihi or were Arabic medical treatises written by physicians such as al-Kindi (Alkindus), Qusta ibn Luqa (Costa ben Luca), Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, Ali ibn Ridwan, Ibn Jumay, Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abd-el-latif, Ibn al-Quff, and Ibn al-Nafis. Their works covered a number of subjects related to pollution such as air contamination, water contamination, soil contamination, solid waste mishandling, and environmental assessments of certain localities.[4]
King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke had become a problem.[5][6] But the fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow. Air pollution would continue to be a problem in England, especially later during the industrial revolution, and extending into the recent past with the Great Smog of 1952. This same city also recorded one of the earlier extreme cases of water quality problems with the Great Stink on the Thames of 1858, which led to construction of the London sewerage system soon afterward.
It was the industrial revolution that gave birth to environmental pollution as we know it today. The emergence of great factories and consumption of immense quantities of coal and other fossil fuels gave rise to unprecedented air pollution and the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. Chicago and Cincinnati were the first two American cities to enact laws ensuring cleaner air in 1881. Other cities followed around the country until early in the 20th century, when the short lived Office of Air Pollution was created under the Department of the Interior. Extreme smog events were experienced by the cities of Los Angeles and Donora, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, serving as another public reminder.[7]
[edit]Modern awarenessPollution became a popular issue after World War II, due to radioactive fallout from atomic warfare and testing. Then a non-nuclear event, The Great Smog of 1952 in London, killed at least 4000 people.[8] This prompted some of the first major modern environmental legislation, The Clean Air Act of 1956.
Pollution began to draw major public attention in the United States between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, when Congress passed the Noise Control Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Bad bouts of local pollution helped increase consciousness. PCB dumping in the Hudson River resulted in a ban by the EPA on consumption of its fish in 1974. Long-term dioxin contamination at Love Canal starting in 1947 became a national news story in 1978 and led to the Superfund legislation of 1980. Legal proceedings in the 1990s helped bring to light Chromium-6 releases in California–the champions of whose victims became famous. The pollution of industrial land gave rise to the name brownfield, a term now common in city planning. DDT was banned in most of the developed world after the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring.
The development of nuclear science introduced radioactive contamination, which can remain lethally radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Lake Karachay, named by the Worldwatch Institute as the “most polluted spot” on earth, served as a disposal site for the Soviet Union thoroughout the 1950s and 1960s. Second place may go to the area of Chelyabinsk U.S.S.R. (see reference below) as the “Most polluted place on the planet”. [citation needed]Nuclear weapons continued to be tested in the Cold War, sometimes near inhabited areas, especially in the earlier stages of their development. The toll on the worst-affected populations and the growth since then in understanding about the critical threat to human health posed by radioactivity has also been a prohibitive complication associated with nuclear power. Though extreme care is
in the field and the study is supported by the Department of State, the fact that no U.S. scientists are currently involved in constructing and operating nuclear devices on Lake Karachay, could not be more inconvenient for the countries who have built facilities for using nuclear power in the first place. And, as there are a variety of opinions about the scientific value of nuclear research in the areas it covers (or how relevant the facilities would be, which will determine how the data are collected, and so on), there will be, in general, a consensus in most of the countries involved on how best to use it. Nuclear weapons, with their very low energy and speed, are in the same category. But for the U.S., a nuclear power plant as large as Lake Karachay can take more than 100 years. That’s a long time in the hands of a nation as massive as the U.S. for such a large and diverse program. [citation needed]It is also possible, and justified, to ask: Why is this part of the program a matter of national security, particularly given the potential for catastrophic failures to come up as nuclear weapons are being developed? In sum, as I have said, one of the greatest threats to human health is nuclear disarmament, in part through nuclear disarmament. Many times in my career I have referred to nuclear arms proliferation as a threat to humanity, either to human security or to the economy at large. Yet it seems as though there are a dozen or so nations, all with high rates of radioactive contamination in their soil and water, who could afford nuclear weapons. They cannot because there is the possibility that the possibility that their own citizens will have the next nuclear weapon in their hands. And their citizens don’t want that danger. These are two very different things. This nuclear issue has been a national security concern to me, and for the United States to deal with an American nuclear catastrophe on land, especially in a country with the largest military base on the planet, is an extremely serious policy concern. And to assume that someone else’s country would have nuclear weapons on our soil and water, by using them, would be to be in violation of a strong national security principle, and a very, very dubious one. The U.S. should take immediate action to address and curtail our nuclear program. It is time that Congress put the U.S. nuclear weapons program on its agenda. The world needs to know that it will take immediate action to dismantle our nuclear weapons program, including implementing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, creating a new set of guidelines for the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and providing new safeguards for nuclear power plants, and ending the nuclear arms program, and to renew the existing moratorium on enriching these types of fuel to low-enriched uranium, where appropriate. The need for such a treaty, as it exists in nearly all other places where it is used, should be a national security issue and one that no country has the faintest faith in or can take seriously. These are two very different problems. In this context, it is helpful to note that, for the nuclear arms to occur, there has to be agreement between all parties, and this agreement needs not be in principle. By the same token, it does not need to be done in