Contaminacion

Pollution

Environmental degradation due to the actions of many humans towards nature in recent times, in the sense that their performance was licensed to exploit natural resources with indifference to everything that had no effect or direct benefit of man has led to one of the major problems that humanity is facing today: pollution. It's not only a matter of products are introduced, but their quantity of use. Water, air and soil are the main means contaminated, according to Susan S. Lang in her article “Water, air and soil pollution causes 40 percent of deaths worldwide, Cornell research survey finds” The waste of proliferation like hydrogen cyanide is a serious imbalance in the ecosystem, to the point of make impossible the life of existing species. In a recent article, Neena Satija wrote…”In the past two years, several industrial plants reported dozens of unauthorized releases of hydrogen cyanide, a chemical that interferes with organs’ oxygen use and is deadly in high concentrations. And in at least 10 instances, plants released 65 pounds or more of the gas." The intensive exploitation of natural resources and the development of large industrial and urban concentrations of pollution in certain areas, are phenomena which, almost uncontrolled, has led to saturation of the assimilative and regenerative capacity of nature and can lead to irreversible disturbance of balance general ecological, whose long-term consequences are not easily predictable.

Water contamination is understood as the act of introducing some material on water quality and altering its chemical composition. In our country are produced daily thousands of tons of industrial waste, of which a large percentage have serious impact on the environment. In her report Neena Satija talks about the devastation in Galveston Bay “Oiled birds and stranded boats have been some of the most compelling visual images of the devastation in Galveston Bay in the wake of an oil tanker collision that might have released up to 168,000 gallons of fuel oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.” The natural water sources we have are: rainwater, rivers, lakes, seas and groundwater. It is found in many rocks and stones harsh and in the atmosphere as clouds or mist. Man has always dump their waste in the water. Normally rivers can auto debugged the waters drag debris into the oceans, bacteria use oxygen dissolved in water and degrade organic compounds, which in turn are eaten by fish and aquatic plants returning the oxygen and carbon in the biosphere.

The conclusion reached in a controversial research by specialists of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA, is disturbing: Air pollution causes each year 200,000 premature deaths that country. A person who dies from causes related to air pollution usually die about a decade before reaching the age until they have lived (except in cases of violent death) if he had not suffered the effects of air pollution. As expected, the study has determined that emissions from vehicles are, of all pollution sources, the main cause of these premature deaths. The team of Steven Barrett, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT tracked at low altitude emissions emanating from sources such as smokestacks, tailpipes of vehicles and heating systems to homes and businesses throughout the United States and came to the conclusion that air pollution causes approximately 200,000 premature deaths each year. The emissions generated by road transport are the most significant contribution, causing 53,000 deaths. In an analysis conducted state by state, the researchers found that California suffers the worst health impacts caused by air pollution, with approximately 21,000 premature deaths annually.

This chart shows the annual average concentrations of fine particles in smoke, for each class of source emission combustion in America. to: electricity generation; b: Industrial; c: commercial and residential buildings; d: road transport; e: shipping; f: rail transport; g: sum of all combustion sources; h: sum of all sources. (Graphic: Laboratory of Aviation and Environment MIT)

The researchers also analyzed the emissions of 5,695 US cities and found that the highest rate of mortality associated with emissions is given in Baltimore, where 130 of every 100,000 residents presumably die every year prematurely due to long term exposure to air pollution.

We can classify the sources of soil contamination in two main types: pollution of man-made and natural contamination effects. In the first type, the man is involved directly; is one type of pollution that man is an active part of land degradation such as the transformation of crops, development of the medium, creating large land routes (motorways, highways, ...), discharges, etc. In the second type, the man is involved indirectly. It is contamination by natural effects such as erosion and desertification but what role does the man in this type of pollution? We say that is involved indirectly through their actions help to strengthen the pollution of natural or effects they occur, for example a forest is more likely to suffer a fire if it is dirty

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