6 February 2014

Pollution is Chemical Warfare Against the Planet

Science has revealed that the demise of the dinosaurs and extinction of many life forms was due to a meteor, comet or asteroid impact at the Yucatan Peninsula some 65.5 million years ago. There was enough debris thrust into the atmosphere to cause an ice age. Science has also shown that a volcanic eruption around 535 A.D. in what is now El Salvador caused a volcanic winter and an explanation for the Dark Ages. There was enough ash and acidic dust to veil much of the earth from Greenland to Antarctica. There was so much pollution that it dimmed the sun enough to cause unseasonable weather, famines and crop failures. The volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2010 halted air traffic for five days and dropped ash thousands of miles away, in the winds of the upper atmosphere.

We know that a single smoke stack emits a minimal amount of pollutants compared to the astronomic impact or volcanic activity mentioned above. It is however, the massive numbers of smoke stacks that create the global problems. The carcinogenic mix of pollutants from various industries can create a dangerous atmospheric soup. The various pollutants can combine in the atmosphere and affect unsuspecting people. There have been studies showing the increased incidence of cancers downwind of many manufacturing plants. The pollutants rise and are carried by wind currents, the amounts may be a few microns per million per smoke stack but we are constantly being exposed. We are seeing the demise of the Monarch butterflies their lives are more fragile than ours and they can't fight or escape the poisons. They are an indicator of a problem. There also has been a noticeable reduction of songbirds. They too are victims of a carbon pollution problem. Studies are showing an ever-increasing incidence of asthma and cancers in our children. It is apparent to me that the weakest are the first to reveal the early stages of a serious of the problem, ironically as was the canary in the coal mine. We have to be astute and acknowledge the signs, ignoring them won't make them go away. A logical conclusion seems to be that the pollutants from factories and coal-fired power plants just up-wind and those thousands of miles away are raining pollutants and impacting the environment causing problems around the world. It seems to me industry is unwittingly or wantonly inflicting chemical warfare on the plant life, animals, and people of the planet. The amounts may seem small, but when you look at the total picture of all factories and their combined output over time, it reveals a deadly situation on the horizon. Geologists learn from the deposits of cataclysms of the past and study their effects on the environment at a time in history. They study the pollution in the stratification of rock and in soil samples and determine how it will affect the environment of the future. At the current rates of pollution and chemicals released, we may not have a century before things are too polluted to survive.

We in the United States claim to be world leaders. So let us be leaders and responsible stewards of this small fragile planet, and strive to make it a better place than how we found it. We have to start some time and now would be the best time to stop or at least put some limits on the carbon pollutants released into the air by our power plants. It is only a drop in the bucket, of what needs to be done, but it is a beginning.

Mark J. Shively markdesignmjs@verizon.net

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