The Problem of Acid Rain
WHAT CAUSES ACID RAIN
When power stations, factories, houses and cars release pollution into the air it has chemicals in it called sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
SULPHUR DIOXIDE: Man-made sulphur dioxide comes mainly from burning fossils fuels in power stations. It then mixes with water in the atmosphere to make sulphuric acid, which will later fall as acid rain.
NITROGEN OXIDES: Nitrogen oxides are also man-made and mainly come from car exhausts. These gases also go into the atmosphere and mix with water to form nitric acid, which once again falls as acid rain.
WHAT EFFECTS DOES ACID RAIN HAVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT ?
SOILS, TREES AND PLANTS.
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This makes it easier for fungi and insects to attack the tree, and as a result the tree may die.
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Acid rain not only damages soil but can also affect the trees directly. Pollutants can block or damage the little pores on the leaves through which the plant takes in the air it needs to survive.
LAKES AND WATER Acid rain can damage the water and the wildlife in lakes. A lake that has been affected by acid rain looks clean and crystal clear, but contains no life. Most wild plants and animals that live in clean, unpolluted lakes cannot live in acid waters.
Fish are poisoned by the aluminium which is washed out of the ground into the lakes. Lakes also receive rainfall directly from the sky.
A healthy lake has a pH of around 6.5 and a large number of plants, insects and fish can live there. In addition, there are a number of animals and birds that feed on the plentiful food in a healthy lake.
As the lake becomes more acidic (the pH gets smaller) the fish find it more difficult to reproduce successfully, as the young fish find it difficult to live in the high levels of acidity and die. It is not only the acid in the water that kills them, but also poisonous minerals like aluminium that are washed out of the surrounding ground into the water. The birds that eat the fish also begin to suffer as the harmful
“The pH of a solution is a measure of the molar concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution and as such is a measure of the acidity or basicity (sic) of the solution. The letters pH stand for power of hydrogen and the numerical value defined as the negative base 10 logarithm of the molar concentration of hydrogen ions.” (PH, 2002). The pH scale is from 0 to 14. When the pH is higher, the hydrogen ions are fewer and the substance considered alkaline. This means when a pH unit increases by one, there is a tenfold change in the hydrogen ion. For example, if a substance has a 7 pH, it has 10 times as many as hydrogen ions available as 8 pH. A lake having a water pH between 6.5 and 8.5 is considered to be neutral. Researchers tested Peckham Park lake water monthly from August 2015 to April 2016 for water pH levels. A water quality PH test strip taken from a jar and dipped into the lake. After a few minutes, the strip will turn a color and this color determines the pH. The jar the strips came in has a chart of the colors on the back which compared to the color on the strip. The lake tested monthly using the PH test strips, which show the pH level, hardness, toxic, etc. using color-change
Dimmesdale who is one of the main character in the Scarlet letter by Nathaniel hawthorne, appeared to be sick and haved sinned. Dimmesdale and hester prynne both have commit the sin adultery. Hester was punished but Dimmesdale had hid his sin for only Hester knew until her husband came and found out.
The Bowen plant was an unusually large plant with a capacity to serve the residential, commercial and industrial demands of 1 million people. The Bowen generators consumed 8.338 million tons of coal and generated 21,551 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. During 1990, Bowen plant emitted over 30 tons of sulfur dioxide per hour, an important precursor of acid rain. In 1990, Congress passes the
Water was collected using a Wan Dorn Bottle (Lab Manual). There were approximately 20 students that collected samples from the deepest part of the lake, and 20 students that collected samples from the shallowest part of the lake. The shallower portion of the lake was closest to a golf course and floating vegetation (Lab Manual). Five water collections were made at each location. From the deep part of the lake, each of the five samples was taken at 1m; from the shallower part of the lake, each of the five samples was taken at a 0.5m depth (Lab Manual). These water samples were collected into 5 separate bottles, each labeled one through five. Bottle one had water nearest the surface, whereas bottle five had water collected deeper in the lake. Bottles two through four were intermediate levels of one and five. We used the water in the bottles labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, to detect the temperature and test the pH of the water samples from the various depths of both locations. Water from the labeled bottles 1, 3, and 5 were put into bottles labeled N1, N3, and N5, and were brought back to the lab to analyze their nutrient content (Lab
Martin Luther King signed the message from a Birmingham jail after being arrested for leading demonstrations in the city. Birmingham was the biggest city in Alabama was segregation was openly practiced. In the famous open letter, Martin Luther King was defending his constitutional and moral right to organize nonviolent protests in the city to advocate for the civil rights of African Americans. Martin Luther King famously stated that breaking laws was justified as long as such laws were deemed inhumane or unjust.
In Chicago, acid rain has been corroding many statues, buildings, and monuments. Acid rain can do more than just burn materials, it can also destroy them. Buildings have been corroding for years on end, which makes them unstable and hazardous. This has become more and more of a problem throughout the years and has not been improving. Acid rain also creates a gypsum coating on materials that is insoluble and remains as a coating on the surface of a material (Allaby, 2003, pgs. 84-95). As a result of acid rain buildings will become uninhabitable and unsafe for people in the buildings and people in the vicinity of the building. Acid rain has very negative effects not only on buildings but to people and nature. The chemical substances in acid rain
In the following figure 1, the amount of lakes were present in the summer of of 1975 shows that many lakes existed before the pH level was non existent. As soon the pH level increased, the fish disappeared as well as the lakes. In spite of the fact that there are few spikes once in awhile; it is conceivable that the fish attempted
“North Americans have been smelting ore and burning fossil fuels for generations. In the past, the gases went up ordinary chimneys or small smoke stacks, to descend upon near by areas and pollute them,” states author, Robert Collins. Almost everyone knows what acid rain is and has a vague idea of the consequences that exist as a cause of it. Most people however do not realize the severity of acid rain. The essay “Acid Rain: Scourge from the Skies” by Robert Collins was very effective in showing the true severity of acid rain. By using excellent developmental devices, Robert Collins was able to write an effective essay that is appealing to today’s society, as well as
Acid rains as a phenomenon has been identified during the 19th century in Europe, and was attributed the smokes rising from chimneys factories coinciding with the overtime increase of rain acidification especially in Scandinavia. There is a growing interest in acid rains and its destructive effects in the light of the development of global industry especially in the industrialized countries, which consume huge quantities of fuel and release increasing quantities of gases such as sulphur dioxide, hydrogen, and nitrogen oxides which produce sulfur and nitrogenouns acids upon the interactions with oxygen and water vapour. Acids produced remain in the form of fine mist until dissolved in rainfall once occurs and then precipitates as
Acid rain can hurt the plants in the forest environment because when the plant start drinking the acid rain it makes the plants natural defense weaker. In doing that they are easier to die by diseases because they do not have much natural defense to protect them. It can also cause fires to the environment. Acid rain is known to take the nutrients out of soil killing trees, plants, and crops. With the low nutrients it does damage to the red spruce tree
Bunker fuel is a type of liquid fuel, which is fractionally distilled from crude oil (Geek, 2015). According to the oil industry’s material data sheets, the oil is a complex blend of hydrocarbons derived from various refinery streams, usually residue from the oil refinery processes (Wagstaffe, 2015). In comparison with petroleum products, bunker fuel causes high pollution and is extremely rough. When bunker fuel is burned, it releases sulphur and nitrogen into the atmosphere. These oxides then combine with water in the atmosphere and form acids, which is classified as ‘acid rain’. Generally, acid rain has not been a problem in Australia, but issues have been raised with acidic rain in industrial areas (high levels of sulphur oxides and nitrogen).
Climate change is quickly affecting many social and economic sectors, both directly and indirectly. This is particularly true within the natural habitat sector, as varying impacts on global biodiversity threaten the existence of many species world-wide. While many problems such as warmer temperatures and rising sea levels are attributed to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2), there is one crucial problem that is often overlooked: Ocean acidification. As pH levels in the ocean fluctuate, there are devastating effects on sensitive marine ecosystems and individual species. Increased acidic conditions can pose threats to habitats, such as coral reefs and sea grasses (Guinotte and Fabry 320). These living habitats rely on calcium carbonate to form strong external structures, yet higher pH levels inhibit the organisms’ ability to successfully absorb the compounds needed for this process. Additionally, higher levels of ocean acidification can induce decreases in skeletal-forming compounds, diminishing entire populations of small ocean organisms such as crustaceans and phytoplankton (Doney). Therefore, it can be deduced that the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cripple the marine wildlife ecosystems, because the addition of greenhouse gases, caused primarily by anthropogenic conditions, are acidifying the ocean and disrupting the bio-chemical compounds that are necessary for many marine species to survive.
When President Richard Nixon was in charge, the whole environmental policies started to properly rise in American. Back in 1989 when President Bush issued what would the following year be called the Clean Air of 1990, the United States was taking notice in world climate. Over the years, the country as a whole has strayed from putting emphasis on these issues. Graphs show us that we did better back in 1990 than we did in 2004. Compared to many other countries such as Germany, Japan, Canada, UK, Italy, France, and Australia, the United States releases an incredible amount of more greenhouse emissions. President Bush wanted to take care of three major issues of the time that would benefit every American, “The President proposed legislation designed to curb three major threats to the nation 's environment and to the health of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions.” (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). Acid rain is something that harms plants, marine life, and humans, it has high levels of nitrate and sulfur dioxide. Too much of acid rain can begin to kill species because of its toxic chemicals. Professor Pecorella 2015 on a class lecture of public opinion said that,“public opinion reacts to action”,since this is true, then this would validate what EPA does because the majority of people do believe in global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency would help ensure a safer future for America, one that would allow
The acid rain, formed from the pollution, has a very bad effect on the environment. This is because it can kill trees and become groundwater, which would harm the water cycle negatively. The biological agents could even spread diseases if the water is drank, which has caused many deaths worldwide (mostly in children).
Acid rain damages wildlife and their environments. For example, according to Marian Chertow, he says that acid rain damages lakes, rivers, and streams. Therefore, because the water is polluted with more of the wildlife will die from the acids in the water. In this case, this part is important because if you think about it, many people and animals get food from the water. For example, the fish live in the ponds. But if the acid from the acid rain gets into the water. Then the fish will die and that will be less food for animals and humans. This means that the animal life will die down.For instance, according to Marian Chertow he claims, acid rain can damage forests and soil. Therefore, forests and many areas that contribute to soil are places for animals to live. So this means that they will lose