"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans..."

This is one of the quotes by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the famous French explorer. It clearly mentioned how essential the water and air for the living beings but how we pollute that important natures gifts by our own.

We know that the pollution followed the Industrial revolution since 18^th century. Today in the 21^st century with the advanced technical developments we are facing a major issue. This is pollution. From all kind of pollution air pollution is the biggest threat.

What is air pollution? As in the World Health Organization's definition Air pollution is contamination of the environment by any chemical, physical or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere. Common sources of this are some household combustion devices, vehicles, industrial factories, forest fires etc. The main pollutants are particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide.

There are two types of air pollution. One is visible and other one is invisible. And the invisible pollution contributes to the global warming.

When it comes to global warming greenhouse gasses and carbon dioxide are the main pollutant. Even though living things emit carbon dioxide there are many ways which human work release carbon dioxide. Motor vehicles, power plants, planes and other human activities associated with burning fossils.

Methane is another greenhouse gas. It's releasing from swamps and gas emitting from livestock. CFC is another harmful gas and some refrigerators and aerosol propellants emitted this some time back. But fortunately it's banned now.

Sulfur dioxide is another harmful gas which causes acid rains. It's a component of smog. Industrial countries used to emit this gas a lot, but now they are trying to control the releasing sulfur dioxide amount. Burning fossils like coal and petroleum also release sulfur dioxide to air.

Ammonia is another hazardous gas which release as a result of an agriculture. Insecticides, pesticides and fertilizers which are used in agriculture releases this gas. And also it pollutes the water.

Some industrial factories emit carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and organic compounds to air which makes it pollute.

These various harmful gases are causing many problems. Respiratory and heart problems, global warming, acid rains, depletion of Ozone layer, damaging to wildlife are few of them.

So as environmentalists what we can do to stop air pollution?

First we can use more public transportation for travelling and it will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases we are releasing to air.

Large amount of fossil fuels are burnt to make electricity. So we should conserve energy. We could switch off lights and other electric devices when we are not using it.

And also we could use devices which use less electricity such as CFL bulbs and devices which use energy efficiently.

Without throwing away the unwanted, one time used objects we could Reduce, Reuse and Recycle these objects.

We could start using the clean energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal.

There are many organizations and governments which have started projects to reduce the amount of air pollution today. And there are many innovative ideas which we could use to put an end to this massive destruction of air.

Our earth is a remarkable place, which gives us life, freedom to live and beauty. As the inheritors of mother earth our duty is to protect it. So let's stand against the pollution. Let's make a better world where we could breathe fresh air not only in country side but wherever we go...