In New England, acid rain is damaging to hardwood forests, and some trees have stopped the air altogether. At the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, the monuments erected to commemorate the role of the site in the civil war is deteriorating much faster than in other regions of the United States. If you D43a a car in the Northeast, the finish of the exterior paint is likely to show more extensive signs of hasty alteration than cars elsewhere in the country. In mid-Appalachian spruce trees are dying. Creeks lose their fish and the entire species in the forests is threatened. In Germany, in addition to half of forests are affected by Walsterben, or 'death of the forest '.
All of these conditions are caused by acid rain, a generic term used to describe the phenomenon that occurs when acids are released in the "atmosphere and deposited in the form of rain, fog or snow (called wet deposition) or as gases and particles (known as dry deposition)." The term was first used in the 1870s by a French scientist, Robert Angus Smith. When l 'moisture s acid' flows through the ground after a storm, it affects plants and animals in aquatic environments, as well as the trees in the forest above ground systems dry deposition occur when winds and storms blowing gases and fine particles on trees or on the surface of the water or soil dry deposition and wet also significantly affect artificial such as houses structures, statues, cars and other vehicles and signs. Before the turn of the 20th century, acid rain has been mainly a problem because of the damage to towns and villages near factories. Now, the problem is international because of d'industrialisation return and more large factory chimneys which disperse pollutants high into the atmosphere, where they can be transported for thousands of miles.
Pollution of air from a pulp and paper plant
Acidic rain acid is invisible and cannot be felt or tasted, but it can be identified and measured on the pH scale, which refers to this acid quantity in water on a scale of 0 to 14. Substances with a pH less than 7 are acidic and substances having a pH above 7.0 are alkaline (basic). Owing to the way the pH scale is designed, there is a difference increased tenfold between a number and the other. For example, a decrease in pH of 6.0 to 5.0 represents a tenfold increase in acidity, while a decline from 6.0 to 4.0 represents an increase of one hundred times. Lemon juice has a pH of 2.3. Vinegar has a pH of 3, and 'pure' rain water has a pH of 5.6. Acid rain has a pH of 5, 6 or less. Most acid rain in the United States has a pH of approximately 4.3.
The three main components of acid rain are sulphur dioxide, dioxide oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are produced by electricity generation using fossil fuels such as coal. These pollutants are also other industrial processes, as well as vehicles. The problem has worsened since the beginning of the 1970s, when a worldwide oil embargo conduit of to a large increase in an amount of coal that was used by the utility companies. A study of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 1985 has shown that the components of acid rain emissions were twice as high also that they had been in 1900. Due to the uncertainty of supplies of oil due to conflicts in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions, importation of foreign coal with a high sulphur content increased the quantity of emissions even more.
The sign of George Bush Clean Air Act Amendments
The United States tried to control emissions through the Clean Air Act (1990), forcing industries to significantly reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide and for nitrogen dioxide. The Act requires utility companies to install pollution control equipment, monitor the level of pollutants released and to obtain emission permits that limit how they can produce. In addition, the agreements between the United States and the Canadian attempt to reduce emissions from power plants along the Ohio River Valley that cause acid rain that poisons Canadians and American media.
The problem of acid rain transcends international borders, and in some parts of Europe, pH levels have been measured at 3.8, even when plants are not present in the vicinity. Pollution dependent more difficult when the source of the emissions controls is difficult to use, as in the case where the prevailing winds carry particles of sulphur in Chinese coal-fired power plants in Japan and Korea.
Other References
Beckley, s. ' who will stop acid rain? Newsweek, March 24,1986. Ahem, Archie M. acidifying: Reign of controversy. Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1986; Mahnen, V.A. "the challenge of acid rain. Scientific American, August 1988; Pack, Chris C. Acid Rain: Rhetoric and reality. New York: Methuen Co., 1987; Yanarella, Judge Ernest and Randal H. Ihara. The acid rain debate: science, economics and the political dimensions. Boulder: Westview, 1985.
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