• Works for the UN Environment

Programme's Regional Office for North

America as a program officer.
• She worked at the World watch Institute
earlier and is the author of Vanishing
Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age
of Globalization. Globalization is a term
used to describe the process (2000).
• Presents a thorough and well-
documented overview of the terrible
worldwide effects of air pollution in this
essay.
Air pollution was mostly caused by the coal
consumed to power the industrial revolution a
century ago. The problem and its causes have
grown more complex and broader since then.
Coal is the primary source of pollution in
several parts of the world, including much of
Eastern Europe and China. Automobiles and
factories are now the dominant culprit in
other places.

Industry is adding to the smog by

generating pollutants with a high toxicity.
Every year, millions of tons of carcinogens,
mutagens, and toxins are released into the
atmosphere, harming human health and the
environment near their sources as well as
thousands of kilometers distant via the
winds.
Global warming has emerged as the most pressing environmental worry, giving the false
impression that traditional air pollution is a thing of the past. However, fossil fuels burnt
in energy, transportation, and industrial systems are the primary source of air pollution
and greenhouse gases. Because the two problems have similar origins, they may have
comparable solutions.

Regrettably, governments
continue to address them
separately, putting one at
risk as the other grows.
Air pollution has proven to be such a difficult problem to
address that a book might be written about the history
of attempts to address it. Some of the answers have
even contributed to the problem: The tall smokestacks
built in the 1960’sand 1970’s to disperse emissions
from huge coal burning power plants became conduits
to the upper atmosphere for the pollutants that form
acid rain.

To turn the turn around on air pollution, we must go

beyond patchwork, end-of-pipe solutions, and address
pollution at its source. This will necessitate a shift in
energy, transportation, and industrial structures in the
direction of prevention.
Air pollution affects countries on all continents and
at all stages of development, and it comes in a
variety of forms. The first pollution problem
recognized as a concern to human health was the
combustion of fossil fuels—primarily coal—by
power plants, businesses, and home furnaces.
Sulfur dioxide and particle pollutants from coal
combustion can increase the incidence of
respiratory disorders such coughs and colds,
asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, either alone
or in combination. Toxic metals can be carried
deep into the lungs by particulate matter which is a
broad name for a complex and variable collection of
contaminants in minute solid form.
Automobile pollution is a second front in the fight for
clean air. Ozone, the main component of urban smog, is
one of the deadliest auto-related pollutants. Ozone is
formed when sunlight reacts with nitrogen oxides
that is made by autos and power plantsto form
hydrocarbons which is a by-product of many industrial
processes and engines. It can cause considerable
respiratory distress.
Concern is developing around the world about the
health threat posed by less prevalent but extremely
damaging airborne toxic compounds created by
automobiles and industries, such as benzene, vinyl
chloride, and other volatile organic chemicals.These
chemicals can cause a wide range of ailments,
including cancer and genetic and birth problems, yet
they have gotten significantly less regulatory
attention than traditional pollutants around the world.

Many emerging countries are also plagued by severe air

pollution. Many cities' air quality is deteriorating due to
a lack of effective pollution control technologies and
regulations, as well as ambitions to grow energy and
industrial production. In most of the Third World,
urbanization means that a growing number of people
are exposed to filthy city air.
Environmental information freedom can also be used as a
potent regulatory weapon. In the United States, "right-to-
know" legislation forcing industries to reveal statistics on
their harmful emissions has aided public understanding of
the problem and encouraged more responsible industrial
activity.

Air pollution is now firmly on the public policy agenda in

most parts of the world. This is a really encouraging indicator.
Unfortunately, the public's yearning for clean air has yet to be
met with the political leadership required to make it a reality.
Recent substantial revisions to the Clean Air Act of 1970 in
the United States, for example, will cut acid rain
emissions in half, significantly tighten automotive
emissions limits, and mandate far tougher management of
harmful air pollutants.

Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union will require Western

technologies as well as domestic economic and
environmental reform to make a dent in their pollution.

Air pollution is beginning to emerge on the political

agenda in the Third World as well. In Cubatao, Brazil, a
notoriously polluted industrial city known as "the Valley of
Death," a five-year old government cleanup campaign is
starting to make a dent in the problem.

Mexico City, too, is undertaking a massive clean-up

project. The city administration is launching a package of
measures aimed at drastically reducing automotive
pollution over the next two to three years, with support
from the World Bank, Japan, the United States, and West
Germany.
Industrial countries are engaging in several initiatives aimed at
assisting developing countries with their air pollution issues. The
World Environment Center in New York City and the International
Environmental Bureau in Switzerland both assist in the transfer of
pollution control information and technology to the Third World.
The World Bank is looking into ways to expand its efforts to
combat air pollution. One planned project, combining the World
Bank and the United Nations Development Program, would assist
Asian governments in dealing with urban air pollution and other
environmental issues.
While the methods to clear the air are
accessible, it will be a difficult undertaking.
Powerful businesses in the West, such as
automakers and electric utilities, will vigorously
oppose reforms that look to be costly.

To decrease global warming, the United States

Congress passed legislation requiring the
Agency for International Development to
promote energy efficiency and renewable
energy through its programs. At the same
time, this action will cut air pollution.
To overcome these will not be motivated to cut
obstacles, economic back on their spending.
structures must be they produce in terms of
fundamentally altered. pollution.
For as long as the Taxes, rules, and
expenses of air pollution regulations, all of this can
are considered external to be used to raise public
the economy, individuals, awareness bringing the
accounting systems, hidden costs of air pollution
utilities, and industries into the open
individuals are reacting constructively to growing health and
environmental expenses. Pollution is becoming a topic of
conversation on every continent, and instead of viewing it
as a financial burden, they are viewing it as an
opportunity, which is a good move. The traditional assumption
that pollution is bad has finally been disproved.
 FOR
Listening