Hello~ Everyone~!

While I was reading through today?s newspaper, I found out shocking news about visual pollution!

I never knew that there was some kind of pollution like visual pollution!!

I believe it is a new concept that appeared recently~~

Visual pollution is basically eyesores which can be caused by other pollution or just by undesirable, unattractive views. It may lower the quality of life in certain areas, or could impact property values and personal enjoyment.  Sources of visual pollution include power lines, construction areas, billboards and advertising, deglected areas or !--object--s such as polluted vacant fields or abandoned buildings. 

While visual pollution has few immediate health or environmental effects, what's causing the eyesore can have detrimental effects.

Visibility is a measure of how far and how well people can see into the distance. Haze obscures visibility. It is caused when light is absorbed or scattered by pollution particles such as sulfates, nitrates, organic carbon compounds, soot, and soil dust. Nitrogen dioxide and other pollution gases also contribute to haze. Haze increases with summer humidity because sulfate and other particles absorb moisture and increase in size. The larger the particles, the more light they scatter.

Haze is most dramatically seen as a brownish-grey cloud hovering over cities, but it also obscures many beautiful vistas in U.S. national parks. At Acadia National Park in Maine, visual range on a clear day can be 199 miles. On a hazy day, that can be reduced to 30 miles. At its worst, haze at Grand Canyon National Park was so severe that people could not see across the 10-mile wide canyon. An enormous coal-fired electric plant, the Navajo Power Generating Station, about 80 miles north of the Grand Canyon, was thought to be the source of the pollution causing canyon haze. In 1985 researchers at Colorado State University injected methane-containing deuterium into the power plant's smoke emissions. Deuterium is not normally present in the air. When monitors determined the presence of deuterium in canyon air, researchers were able to demonstrate that the plant was responsible for much of the canyon haze. The result was a landmark settlement in which Navajo's owners agreed to a 90-percent cutback in sulfur dioxide emissions by 1999.