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ESSAY SAMPLE ON "ACID RAIN: ACID DEPOSITION, SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING" |
Acid Rain: Acid Deposition, Scientifically Speaking
As the century past, the industrial society kept advancing. However, many advantages of
the industrial society brings us also has a down side. One of the adverse effects of
industrialization is acid deposition due to power plant, fossil fuel and automobile
emissions. Acid rain is the popular term but the scientists prefer the term acid
deposition. Acid rain can have adverse effects on the environment by damaging forests or
by lowering the pH of the lakes and making the water too acidic for many aquatic plants
and animals to live.
The father of acid rain research is an Englishman named Charles Angus Smith who
suggested in, 1852, that sulfuric acid in Manchester, English, was causing metal to rust
and dyed goods to fade. One source that causes acid rain are fossil fuel. Fossil fuel
has many usage in our society. Such as to power electric power plants, industrial
boilers, smelters, businesses, schools, homes and vehicles of all sort. These various
energy sources contribute 23.1 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 20.5 million tons of
nitrogen oxides to our atmosphere worldwide. When fossil fuels are ignited like oil and
coal, they release carbon dioxide, a so-called greenhouse gas that traps heat within the
earth's atmosphere which causes global warming that is taking place right now. Also, it
releases sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and various metals (mercury, aluminum) that are
released into the atmosphere that reacts with other airborne chemicals (water vapor and
sunlight) to produce sulfuric and nitric acid which later can be carried long distance
from their source and be deposited as rain (acid rain) but acid doesn't just came from
rain but also in the forms of snow, hail, fog, and mist.
Forests are a complex ecosystems that involves trees, soil, water, the air, climate and
other living organisms that support the community of wildlife: animals, birds, insects
and plants and also a major economic resource. The countries hardest effected by acid
rain is in the European countries, yet central Europe face a much greater threat since
it has a large amount of forest area and about 8% of German's forest face the lethal
effect of Waldsterben or forest death of acid rain. Acid rain kill about 50 million
hectares of forest that have been damaged in Europe and in Central and Eastern Europe's
thousands of tons of pollution each year that 14,000 lakes are unable to support
sensitive aquatic life. Acid rain does not kill trees outright but weakens them to the
point where they become susceptible to extremes of heat or cold, attacks from
blight-causing or from inserts such as the gypsy moth, and other environmental stresses.
The problem of acid rain is caused by burning of fossil fuel that emits SO2 and
industrial factories from the North America that emits pollution that travels to Europe.
Acid rain is now becoming a growing problem in Third World countries such as China and
India due to rapidly expanding populations where energy demands are increasing. Thus,
the rate of fossil fuel consumption have greatly increased and where pollution controls
are all non-existent have greatly to their problems with acid rain. Yet, most emissions
are primarily located in eastern North America, Europe, and China. That is why acid rain
is so threatening because it is concentrated and it has a devastating effect on soil
because most of the trees get their nutrients from soil, which lakes, ponds, streams, and
other waterways, which receives runoffs from soils uphill which humans.
When acid rain gets into the lakes and river it destroy all living things and declines
in populations of fish, aquatic plant life and micro-organisms. Fish just goes extinct
because they simply fail to reproduce and become less and less abundant, and older and
older, until they die out. Changes in the biology of the provided one of the first clues
to the problem of acid pollution is linked between the acidly of lakes and fish
production. In the Ontario Ministry of the Environment reported that 140 acidified lakes
in the province has no fish at all, and a further 48,000 lakes would not be able to
tolerate extended acid inputs. There are three stages in the acidification of surface
water. The first stage, is bicarbonate ions neutralize acids by reacting with hydrogen
to produce carbon dioxide and water. If the bicarbonate content is maintained at a
critical minimum level, the pH value of the water will remain stable, and plants, animals
and micro-organisms will be unaffected. The second stage, is when the bicarbonate
content drops below the critical level, and large influxes of hydrogen ions can no longer
be neutralized. The pH value begins to go down faster then before this will disrupted
the organisms and young fish. The third stage comes when the pH value stabilizes around
4.5. Almost all the original life is eliminated for example snails, many insects and
fish disappear. The water becomes abnormally clear but some lakes can be neutralize the
acids with limestone.
Destruction of forests and lakes are not the only the cause of acid rain but corrosion
of buildings and monuments are also affected by the acid rain. Almost every buildings of
a major urban or industrial centre may be at risk from the corrosive effects of acid
deposition and the rate of corrosion has increased dramatically in many urban area. The
Athenian monuments is get worst in the past 20-25 years result of pollution.
Most of the corrosion of the city buildings and monuments is the result of the dry
deposition of SO2 and sulphate particles, mainly cause by urban concentrations of
pollutants. When the sulphur pollutants fall on the surface of limestone or sandstone,
they can react with the calcium carbonate in the stone to form calcium sulphate (gypsum),
which sticks to the stone. This will causes flaking that can be washed away by
rainwater, exposing more stone to corrosion and also gypsum and soot particles cause
black crusts on buildings surface. Acid attack can also lead to stone decay through the
creation of salt, which can crystallize and force apart mineral grains, causing the stone
to disintegrate, salt can expand and contract thereby weather the surface. Mainly this
is cause by the release of sulfur and nitrogen oxides by cars and industrial.
As our society get more advance there is also the effect of pollution that rises, to
stop the effect we need to find alternatives way to stop car emission with new fuels and
slowly removing fossil fuel that causing most of the nitrogen oxides. The government
need to put stricter laws on the industrial that pollinated and removing harmful chemical
from the earth. People should find a efficiency and alternatives way to stop the
pollution that is happening around the world because the effect can be seen all round us
starting with the forest, lakes and in the heart of are city where the buildings and
monuments are being eating away by pollution.
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