Post 5

Why is pollution bad for your health?

If we accept environmental pollution, as the addition of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or any form of energy (such as heat, sound, light, or radioactivity) to the environment at a rate faster than it can be dispersed, diluted, decomposed, recycled, or stored in some harmless form, then we have a mammoth task just to classify and sort it all. The major kinds of environmental pollution, are air, water, and land.

And this is long before we start to get into specific sub-areas such as plastics p., noise p., lead p., or acid rain p. ALL of these have elements that are potentially harmful to the ecosystem (of which we are a part).

And we cannot ignore the global-sized sword of Damocles swinging ever closer, irreversible climate change due to atmospheric pollution from man-made CO2, CH4, and other greenhouse gases.

Even healthy people can experience health impacts from polluted air including respiratory irritation or breathing difficulties during exercise or outdoor activities. Your actual risk of adverse effects depends on your current health status, the pollutant type and concentration, and the length of your exposure to the polluted air.