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Automobiles Essay

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Automobiles

The invention of the automobile in the early 20th century has had an adverse affect on our environment. Our society has used technology in order to advance the automobile to make it better and more efficient. The automobile industry knows what sells and they take advantage of that. With this growing technology to advance automobiles also comes flaws. The biggest and most obvious flaw is pollution. Because of pollution, we find ourselves asking the question of whether this technology has helped our society more than it has hurt it. Automobiles are the cause of 60 percent of our air pollution today (Dewees 214). There are four main sources in which pollution comes from an automobile. The first, on a hot day the sun will …show more content…

What really happens is that there are hydrocarbon atoms left over from the combustion process because they did not burn properly or at all. Another pollutant that is given off by automobiles along with hydrocarbons is carbon monoxide. This too is also a result of the incomplete process of the combustion of fuel. Carbon monoxide is emitted directly from the tailpipe. There are specific times when this is common, when your car does not get enough air during starting and it chokes, when cars are not tuned properly, during cold weather the level of carbon monoxide being emitted increases due to more fuel to start the car, and also at high altitudes. The office of Mobile Sources did a study in 1992 which showed that carbon monoxide levels exceeded the Federal air quality standard in 20 U.S. cities . Some other pollutants besides hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide that are given off are nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxides. These nitrogen oxides are given off by the high pressure in the automobiles engine where nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the air react and then form the nitrogen oxide. All of these pollutants effect the environment and people in a negative way. Next we will take a look at what exactly these pollutants do to us. The most dangerous and widespread of all pollutants are hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons emitted by automobiles create smog, which in turn acts as a ground level ozone layer and causes many health

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