Air Pollution - There Is Something You Can Do About It!

The polluting substances, which are released into the air (called emissions), can be distinguished into natural emissions and emissions caused by humans (anthropogenic). Natural sources are certain products of metabolism like gases emitted by volcanoes or forest fires. The bigger problem are the anthropogenic emissions, however, as they are not released occasionally, but have been released continuously since the dawn of industrialisation and the development of traffic. In centres of population the emissions are especially high.

Sources of considerable importance are the smoking chimneys of factories and power plants. Not only industry, but also every single person contributes to the problem, though: by domestic heating. Amongst these are the exhaust fumes from heating systems in households, and particularly the exhaust fumes released by cars in daily traffic.

Although the problematic nature of air pollution and the resulting environmental damage were only realised within the last few decades, people fortunately became aware that something has to be done quickly.

Today, there are several methods for purifying exhaust fumes. By desulphurising the flue gases of incinerators, the emission of sulphur dioxides was reduced considerably. Cars are equipped with catalytic converters (see picture), which removes a major part of the carbon monoxides, the nitric oxides and the unburned hydrocarbons from the exhaust fumes.

Another important step was the change over to means generating energy lower in harmful substances. For example, the use of water, wind or solar power instead of thermal power stations or district heating instead of oil-fired heating.

Nevertheless, it is important that everybody contributes to a further reduction of the emission of pollutants or even to a complete avoidance. For example, by avoiding unnecessary trips with the car - even if it has a catalytic converter - and using public transport or the bicycle instead or by walking on foot. Additionally, try to use more environmentally friendly sources of energy in your household.

Carbon dioxide, which is released in great amounts, poses a special problem, which is blamed for causing the greenhouse effect. Therefore, a worldwide reduction of the carbon dioxide emission was decided upon at the climate conference in Kyoto in the year 1997. Unfortunately, the Kyoto protocol still offers loopholes, and some of the major carbon dioxide producers, like the USA, don’t keep to the protocol anyway.

This attitude is incomprehensible, because if we don’t act now to limit the damage caused by air pollution as much as possible, it is very likely that this will have devastating effects worldwide in the future!