Air pollutionby Hnin Phyu Sin | 11-04-2019 00:24 |
|---|
 Our earth is composed of air, water and soil. All are necessary for our lives. We need to breathe in the air to be alive and we breathe out the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Trees absorb the carbon dioxide that we exhaled. Air pollution can be broken down into outdoor and indoor air pollution. Pollution comes from many sources and the majority of them are a result of human activity. 1. Burning of fossil fuels, such as coal to generate electricity for homes and businesses or petrol and diesel to power our cars, buses, ships and planes 2. Industrial processes, particularly from the chemical and mining industries 3. Agriculture; major source of methane and ammonia 4. Waste treatment such as land filling 5. Improper indoor cooking and heating system; a major problem in the developing world 6. Volcanic eruption, dust storm and other natural processes. Death and illnesses from air pollution are due to breathing tiny, invisible air borne particles called particulate matter. These particles are clumps of poison, containing anything from black carbon (soot), sulphates to lead. How much of this pollution we breathe in is dependent on many factors such as access to clean energy for cooking and heating, the time of the day and the weather. Rush hour is an obvious source of local pollution. The massive increase in emissions of air pollution due to economic and industrial growth has made air quality an important environmental problem throughout the world. Global greenhouse gas emissions due to human activity have been growing for several years, with an increase of 70 % between 1970 and 2004. In this regard, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 document stated that ¡°most of the observed increases in globally averaged temperatures since the mid- 20th century is very likely to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations¡±. In Yangon, economic city of Myanmar, air pollution rate is 83.00 (very high) and air quality is 17.00 (very low) as presented facts in September, 2017. In April, 2018, there was a fire which was caused by burning trash in Yangon. According to the World Health Organization, Myanmar has the worst air pollution in ASEAN - no mean feat in a region stacked with choking cities and hazed by smog from forest fires, even though much of the problem is a result of transient pollution from neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Despite this information, plans are underway for a massive expansion of Myanmar¡¯s coal power capacity. With less than a third of the population having regular access to electricity, coal has become a cornerstone of the government¡¯s plan for solving energy shortfalls by 2030. |
