Air Pollution: The Invisible Killer

Earlier the air we breathe in use to be pure and fresh but due to increasing industrialization and concentration of poisonous gases in the environment the air is getting more and more toxic day by day. Also these gases are the cause of many respiratory and other diseases. There's nothing quite like opening the door and breathing fresh, clean, air but how clean is the air you're breathing right now? The gases you're sucking up through your nose could be slowly killing you.

According to the World Health Organization, around 4.2 million people die prematurely from the effects of polluted, outdoor air every single year. Air pollution is a huge problem and not just for people living in smog-choked cities through such things as global warming and damage to the ozone layer. It has the potential to affect us all. Air pollution is obvious when it pours from a smokestack (chimney), but it's not always so easy to spot. Its pollutants include sulfur dioxide and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Modern pollution made by traffic consists of gases like nitrogen dioxide and "particulates" that are largely invisible.

When we think of pollution, we tend to think it's a problem that humans cause through ignorance or stupidity and that's certainly true. However, it's important to remember that some kinds of air pollution are produced naturally. Forest fires and gases released from radioactive decay of rocks inside Earth are just three examples of natural air pollution. Forest fires which often start naturally can produce huge swathes of smoke that drift for miles over neighbouring cities, countries or continents. Radioactive rocks can release a gas  which can build up in the basements of buildings with serious effects on people's health.

All these things are examples of serious air pollution that happen without any help from humans although we can adapt to natural air pollution and try to reduce the disruption it causes that we can never stop it happening completely. For the rest of this article, we'll consider only the "unnatural" types of pollution: the problems that people cause and the ones we can solve.