Effect of air pollution

Effect of Air pollution

November 2, 2008. 7 a.m. Beijing, Tiananmen Square, a photo was taken. In the picture, students dressed in uniform were walking to school on the sidewalk, bicycles and cars were roaring on the street. It is a new day—peaceful, but not beautiful. It has been two week since the last encounter of blue sky. For local residences, they have already gotten used to wake up every morning seeing a layer of smog[ground layer ozone] above them. And for people who work, they have to wear air mask, so to avoid dusts in the air. At night, for children who grew up in the city, rarely have any chance to encounter stars. This is just one out of thousands of example of what air pollution has done to us. In addition, air pollution are not only changing our lifestyle, but harming our health as well. All the illness that is caused by air pollution is categorized into two major groups—short-term and long term health problem.

Young children and elder people are often health victims of air pollution. Human body needs oxygen to do two things: deliver blood cells and keep heart beating. However, because of air pollution, each time people breath, they not only breathe in oxygen but a certain amount of carbon dioxide as well. As a result, people may develop symptoms such as, burning eye, coughing, and chest tightness. Moreover, since exercise requires faster and deeper breathing, it may make the symptoms even worse. And that is why there was a big controversy about Beijing air quality before 2008 Olympic begun.
Air pollution can cause long-term illness as well. Moreover, those symptoms are more harmful. Illness such as, respiratory disease, lung cancer, and heart disease are commonly caused or triggered by air pollution. In addition, in highly polluted areas, children can be sick more often, and elder people may have difficulty breathing. Compare with short-term health affect, long-term health problem are developed over time. Therefore, it is necessary to have a clinical examination with the doctor every year.
In short, air pollution has been a serious environmental problem the world is facing today. Carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur dioxide are not only dangerous but also poison. In many countries such as, China or India, doctors have already begun filing many series illnesses that were caused by air pollution. On the whole, people have to take immediate action to protect environment—reduce the amount of production of greenhouse gases. We are not only doing it for ourselves, but for our offspring as well.