Introduction
Pollution represents the confluence of humans interacting with the Earth environment. Humans have always polluted their environment--but the population of humans on Earth was small enough that natural systems could compensate and dissipate the pollutant. Sometimes humans would just move away from a polluted area. But with 9 billion people forecasted to be on Earth this century, pollution by humans has far exceeded the ability of ecosystems to handle it, and degradation across many Earth systems is the result.
A paper mill in New Richmond, Quebec lacks common pollution control equipment for soot (Wright/Prentice Hall).
Pollution is a major problem in developing countries that have high population densities, little capital to spend on pollution prevention, and little government control to regulate pollution. However, most of the examples we will go over relate to pollution within the U.S.
Why Do We Pollute?
Most pollution is tied into two things:
- Waste disposal. Everyone goes to the bathroom, and you have to properly treat the sewage
- Product Life Cycle pollution. Everything you buy causes pollution, from your electric bill to your Pop Tarts to your TV.
Everything you purchase causes pollution. Food and paper products demand forest removal or conversion of land to agricultural space. All inorganic products have to be mined, the mined materials have to be processed to create raw ingredients, the materials have to be shipped to a factory, the factory generates pollution in creating a product, the product is shipped to store, you by the product--and the product itself may cause pollution, and finally you throw the product out. Each step within this process has pollution associated with it.
Find the sources of pollution in your county. Scorecard uses information from the EPA to show the main air and water polluters in your county, as well as the types and amount of pollution emitted. Just enter your zipcode on the main page.
The Walmart effect. In response to consumer demand to buy the most stuff possible for the lowest price at a single big box store, a significant amount of manufacturing has been moved overseas, where cheap labor and minimal environmental laws drive down product costs--but drastically increase the amount of pollution. Many factories use no pollution control technology-- mimicking the industrial face of the U.S. in the 1800s. Many studies have shown that air pollution generated by manufacturing sites in China travels across the globe to decrease air quality in the U.S. This effect has two negative consequences
- We buy more stuff (Wal mart and its competitors make their money off impulse purchases, not selling you cheap paper towels and dog food)
- Each product has a higher amount of pollution associated to it.