Acid Rain

Another contribution of the increasing population growth is acid rain. Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic. What causes acid rain? Acid rain is caused by emissions of compounds of ammonium, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. Acid rain leads to acidification of lakes and streams, contributes to the damage of trees, accelerates the decay of materials and paints, and also harms the human health.

As discussed in the previous blog, the increasing population growth means that more food, more clothes and more accommodations are needed. In simple terms, the increasing population leads to increasing human needs; and to fulfill those needs manufacturing is required. Most of the manufacturing factories usually releases smoke into the atmosphere. This smoke is made up of gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide,(CO) chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's), hazardous air pollutants (HAPS), lead nitrogen oxides, ozone, particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxides and volatile organic compounds (VOC's) which are all emissions that contribute to acid rain. Therefore, with the increasing population growth the manufacturing process increases as well; this causes more of the gases from the factories to be released into the atmosphere and leads to acid rain.

Despite manufacturing, humans also have another need which is the need to travel around which is a leading contributor to acid rain. In order to travel around we need vehicles, however do we realize that these vehicles are the main contributors of acid rain? Vehicles worldwide are mostly empowered by fossil fuels, when combustion of fossil fuels takes place in the engine of the vehicles, gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide are released in to the atmosphere. These gases become acidic when it reacts with water molecules in the atmosphere and causes acid rain.