Pollution Is A Problem Bro!

Air pollution leads to serious health problems due to the ingestion of very fine carbon particles emitted from car/bus engines. In addition, oxygen and nitrogen in air form nitrogen oxides in engines which come out in tailpipes and form nitric acids via reaction with moisture in the air. Also, petrol and diesel fuels contain sulfur which forms sulfur dioxide and then sulfuric acid by reaction with moisture. These are very harmful chemicals.

Water pollution (mostly from the discharge of various harmful chemicals from factories as well as human/animal wastes) also causes several serious diseases as it also contaminates groundwater used for drinking. In many underdeveloped countries, drinking water is not properly treated and is not safe.

There are various other types of pollution. In India, many coal-based power plants emit very fine fly ash (ash from coal) particles which are very bad for health and also ruin the farmlands. Chemical plants including petroleum (where we process petroleum crude to produce petrol, diesel, and various important chemicals) refineries emit various toxic chemicals despite the best efforts of engineers to minimize those emissions.

Let us go a bit deeper.

Pollution Is A Problem Bro!

Pollution is a Big Problem

Air pollution alone is so bad that approximately 1 in 8 people dies as a result of air pollution. Here’s the source of this alarming statistic: 7 million premature deaths annually are linked to air pollution. This is what they can prove so far and could be an underestimate.

Even in Canada where I live it’s bad even according to our government-sponsored media and despite our relatively low population and low population density: Air pollution cost Canadians $36B in 2015 due to premature death and illness again this might be an understatement since it’s already admitting that the previous 2008 study underestimated the damage a lot.

Update: I found pages that confirmed the statistic that I remembered that about 1 in 4 people dies from “environmental factors” including pollution: Globally, About 1 in 4 Human Deaths Are Due to 'Environmental' Factors, Environment and health in developing countries, An estimated 12.6 million deaths each year are attributable to unhealthy environments so take that’s for what it’s worth. Some of these statistics do include malaria and traffic accidents or UV radiation so it’s not all pollution but it is all overpopulation.

I did find that apparently, an estimated 70% of people died from non-communicable diseases caused primarily by lifestyle factors. Here’s the link: Non-communicable diseases so you can see while this isn’t directly stated to be pollution a significant portion of the deaths probably is caused by pollution.

It’s also probably really hard to measure how much death is caused by pollution and what should count as pollution-caused death. I mean if hypothetically 25% of someone’s death is caused by pollution, 25% is caused by obesity and lack of exercise, 15% is genetics that they were born with but most of which they could have changed in their lifetime, 32% is the junk food that they eat and 3% is radiation from electronics and radio-waves then what killed them? Remove any of the causes and they will survive at least somewhat longer until the damage catches up to 100% from other sources. So if you counted that as “death by pollution” maybe most people, more than 1/2 are dying from pollution because it is a contributing factor.

Pollution is also very bad for all the other life on Earth and is part of what’s causing the 6th mass extinction. Read more about that here: Holocene extinction - Wikipedia, Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn, Earth has entered into a sixth mass extinction event and The era of 'biological annihilation .

The reality is, we have to adapt this pollution. It is true that we can't stop it. But we can reduce it. 

What can we do to reduce this problems that we are not doing? Let us know...

1. We drive in cars solo and do not use public transport. When asked, we blame the government for not providing good public transport.
2. We do not even switch off the car engine at traffic intersection lights.
3. We do not object when we see sweepers or somebody else burning garbage.
4. We go to shops empty handed and come back with polythene bags which are then thrown away. Taking a cloth bag is something we always seem to forget.
5. We do not even convert our kitchen waste to compost which requires only devoting 2 minutes per week! This goes to landfills and results in release of greenhouse gases.
6. When we distribute free food at roadsides (Bhandaras), we do not feel it our responsibility to at least collect the paper/thermocol plates in a bag for giving to the sweeper for recycling. Since these are scattered, these are often burnt leading to release of deadly gases in the air.

These are some very common things, that we can do as an individual.

MindBoiling Notes

Thankyou for giving your time to read this article. Do share this information with your friends. Ask them to do, what they can for the world.

Sources: 

Arun Basu (Former Chemical Engineer)

Noah Harmer

Pramod Kumar