Points: 1. Concern for environment has increased.
2. Pollution – a major environmental concern
3. Types and sources and effects of pollution
4. Causes and associated problems
5. Remedial measures
Both internationally and within nations, the new appreciation of our bonds with nature has spawned new institutions and policies – new UN and Governmental agencies, new laws, altered aid programmes, new international treaties. Yet for the most part, responses remain inadequate to the needs. For the most urgent need today is to protect and preserve what remains of the environment. To do that one has to understand the meaning of pollution and consider ways of tackling it.
Whenever we encounter the term “pollution” now, we mean environmental pollution. It may be described as the unfavourable alteration of our surroundings. It takes place through changes in energy patterns, radiation levels, chemical and physical constitutions and abundance of organisms. It includes release of materials into atmosphere which make the air unsuitable for breathing, harm the quality of water and soil and damage the health of human beings, plants, animals and birds.
Air pollution has accompanied human society from the beginning. Cooking over a wood/dung cake fire often creates a smoky, unhealthy living environment. Today, many Third World cities are blanketed by smoky haze, the poor man’s smog. Despite the successes registered against smoke, the pollution of city air by other products of coal combustion (mainly sulphur dioxide) and by nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons, petroleum wastes and carbon monoxide continues to worsen in most of the countries. Strong evidence indicates that prevailing levels of air pollution contribute to the development of chronic respiratory diseases (emphysema, asthma and chronic bronchitis) besides short-term respiratory afflictions as well. And those living near smelters and refineries often face increased cancer risks because of the toxic substances spewing from smoke-stacks.
Growing concern about the physical discomfort and reduced visibility caused by pollution and rising evidence of the damage being wreaked on crops and materials and health considerations forced the Governments to enact new anti-pollution laws. Over the last 45 years many countries have taken steps to regulate the flow of pollutants in the air. Air pollution can no longer be addressed as simply a local urban problem.
The presence in water of micro-pollutants (toxic chemicals and metals) and of disease-causing micro-organisms has increased over the years. Thermal pollution of water-ways is also causing increased concern. In general, pollution from point sources (sewage pipes and factories) has been progressively controlled. But the contamination of waterways from diffuse sources (run-off from farmlands which carries fertilisers, pesticides and organic matter, and from urban areas, which often carries oil, metals and other pollutants) remains largely uncontrolled and is on the increase in most countries. Acids and heavy metals falling with the rain constitute additional sources of water degradation. The problem of water pollution is growing day-by-day; today many people are deprived of disease-free potable water, as almost all the sources of water – from seas to wells – are increasingly being infested with different kinds of pollution.
Soil pollution usually results from the disposal of solid and semi-solid wastes from agricultural practices and from insanitary habits. Fallouts from atmospheric pollution also contribute to soil pollution. Direct pollution of the land by pathogenic organisms is also increasing. Thus the soil is heavily polluted by hazardous materials and micro-organisms, which enter the food chain or water and are consequently ingested by man. As a result, there are numerous health problems. Those bacteria which are transmitted from air to soil infect man causing bacillary dysentery, cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid fever. Flies which breed or get in contact with the contaminated soil become carriers of disease organisms. The eggs of some of the parasitic worms get incubated in the soil and both the eggs and larvae are infective.
Radioactive pollution and thermal pollutions are other two types of pollutions which are causing serious health hazards.
The modern world has a new pollution to face – that of noise. The scientific approach for considering noise as a pollutant is by decibel. Apart from industrial noise the sources generally are loudspeakers, motor vehicles, trains, aircrafts, processions and rallies. Noise need not just lead to deafness. Research has shown that noise pollution is capable of causing ulcers, abortions, cardiovascular diseases, congenital defects and hypertension.
The first and most important cause of pollution is the growing population. The earth is now crowded with people and all of them consume resources and create wastes. If the per capita amounts of pollutants and wastes were to remain constant, the residue loading of the environment would rise precisely in relation to the growth of pollution. This is acceptable within certain limits, given the capacity of air, water and land to absorb, dilute, carry away and otherwise render pollutants harmless. But, unfortunately, in many places these limits have either been reached or have been exceeded.
Another important factor is the rapid industrialisation and haphazard urbanisation all over the world. Thousands of industrial units generate enormous wastes and effluents which cause dangerous pollution. These alter the composition of the atmosphere and disturb the balance of solar radiation. Thus, man’s industrial activities add more stresses to the biosphere. Haphazard urbanisation makes it difficult to provide and maintain the required civic amenities. Some cities have become so large and so crowded that the municipalities fail to properly maintain the sewage, provide clean drinking water or adequate garbage removal facilities.
The deterioration of natural systems in poor and marginal areas is at once a symptom and a cause of the extreme misery in which hundreds of millions live. The pollution problems cannot be isolated from questions of economic progress, political stability, social awareness, migration and international aid. Indeed, many types of localised environmental degradation have global implications. To some degree their causes are also international.
Through their way of life and the behaviour of their multinational corporations, citizens of the North can affect environmental conditions in the South. More important, the extent of the extreme poverty that gives rise to so much ecological damage and human suffering is influenced by international monetary trade, technological and aid policies. The struggle to preserve global environmental quality is intertwined with the struggle to improve the lot of the global under-class.
The problems are rooted in the society and the economy – and in the end in the political structure, both national and international. Applying sensible pollution control faces inherent political and analytical difficulties. Look at the measures taken by the Government to control smoking: Slogans like “Smoking is injurious to health”, speeches and newspaper articles against smoking hardly have any adverse impact on Indian cigarette industries. Thus the political process is distorted, resulting in weaker anti-pollution policies. With respect to ascribing value to all the costs of uncontrolled pollution or to the benefits of reducing it, no objective means exist. What is the price of a shortened human life?
No doubt, the problems are many and complex even as pollution is growing unbridled. But a failure to control pollution carries an enormous price in the form of bad health and premature deaths of human beings, other animals and plants; losses of productive ecosystems such as fisheries; losses of recreational opportunities and degradation of the aesthetic quality of life. People are gradually losing even the freedom to breathe safely. The all-round depletion is making our planet inhospitable and uninhabitable.
Because of the growing pernicious effects of pollution, the global consciousness on the issue of environment has been on the rise, especially since the United Nations Conference on Human Environment held at Stockholm in 1972. The 1992 Rio Summit on environment is a great landmark in this direction.
The importance of clean environment and the detrimental effect of pollution have been realised in India as well. Several legislations exist to control pollution and conserve the environment, with the Environment Protection Act of 1988 being the most important law. But unless legislations are enforced with sufficient political will, they are rendered useless. Greater participation of the voluntary organisations and an effort to educate the masses on environment and pollution can help to make the Acts effective. Further, those who profit from polluting activities should be strictly made to compensate those who suffer the ill consequences (as per the “polluter pays” principle).
Environmental choices must be guided by a vision of a desirable human society and of the quality of the natural environment needed to support that vision. *ZZZ*