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Pollution and Environment
Pollution is the fouling of the environment, that is, land, water and air- by waste, smoke, etc. Every industrial country faces the problem of waste. As factories make new goods for people to buy, old ones are thrown out with the household trash. Burning this garbage pollutes the air, throwing it into rivers and seas pollutes the water while piling it up leads to unpleasant rubbish heaps, which take up much-needed space.
Our beautiful ecosystem is being systematically damaged by industrial pollution channeled into rivers like Ganga and Yamuna, nuclear wastes from atomic plants routed into the world’s oceans and poisonous gases like carbon dioxide mixed with the ozonosphere. Besides, tropical rain forests and green pastures are disappearing under the pressure of a proliferating population. Dams are being built over rivers such as the Narmada to change nature’s well-balanced surface equations between flora and fauna. Elsewhere sloping mountainous terrain is being converted into mini oceans to supply electricity to the ever-starving industrial stomach of our age. Elephants, tigers, wild rhinos of South Africa and many other forest creatures have become endangered species.
Consumerism has created a garbage glut in the world. Consumers in industrialized countries throw out staggering amounts of refuse like cartons, cigarette butts, polythene bags and plastic containers, which mix with the water of rivers and oceans and fertile crop-yielding soil of the earth. If too much sewage is poured into seas, lakes and rivers, the water can no longer dilute it,as a result all the oxygen gets used up and the fish die. The bacteria which normally break down the refuse into harmless matter also die, only harmful bacteria which do not need air remain and these cause diseases.
Owning a car has really become a status symbol these days. The arrival of Maruti 800 on the roads of India already brought a revolution in the world of automobiles. And now the upcoming Nano will bring about a new revolution. But the increase in the number of cars has added to various pollution problems. The smoke-emitting guzzlers have made cities like Delhi living gas chambers. The growing number of vehicles; have vitiated the atmosphere. The amount of harmful gases in the air is alarmingly on the rise. They affect our eyes and lungs giving rise to all kinds of respiratory diseases.
On the landmass, eco-destroying monsters are deforestation, dams constructed to generate electricity and serve irrigational facilities, and soot and toxic gases resulting in the greenhouse effect. Some American environmentalists like Jeremy Rifkin blame the world’s population of cattle for most of the ecological ills. These creatures we feed and fatten to get their meat, spoil streams and underground aquifers. Tropical rain forests are turning into pastures for this gluttonous herd. In Saharan Africa, the burgeoning population of cattle is denuding the arid lands of fertile vegetation. In Netherlands, population of pigs poses a major ecological threat. Their manure defiles water supply with excessive nitrates and acidifies local soils.
Building dams over rivers is like clotting the blood of nature and stopping its pulse from beating. Scientists have proved that dams and embankments cause more floods and do more harm than good. Flooding is a boon of nature when occurring in limits. It cleanses and renews river basins, expands feeding and breeding grounds of plants, fishes, birds and wildlife, and spreads fresh layers of fertile silt from which we get bumper crops.
Getting rid of plastics is particularly difficult- with time, wood and paper decay through the action of bacteria, but plastics never decay.
Pollution must be controlled and the sooner the better. It will cost a great deal, both in terms of money and a change in lifestyle. For example, acid rain can be arrested by checking harmful fumes before they go out from power station chimneys. This may push up the price of electricity, but is for the better. Also, the packaging of goods in bright plastics and the ‘throwaway’ culture should be discouraged. As industry needs a regular supply of raw materials, the best solution to the problem of waste is to make use of it as a raw material by reusing or recycling it. Governments must not allow construction contractors who are largely responsible for manmade floods to plunder the timber wealth of forests.
The introduction of metro has eased the traffic on the roads of Delhi to a little extent. It provides a comfortable, cleaner and cheaper alternative to the office-goers. The day is not very far when unconventional sources of energy will be used to drive cars.
The Japanese solution to environmental hazards is burning, burying, reducing and recycling waste products. In U.S., more than 2,000 garbage burning plants work day and night in addition to 125 large incinerators. Another Japanese solution is aqua culture, which they have introduced in their industries to keep them clean. An Italian chemical giant has manufactured a plastic substitute, which reduces the greenhouse effect.
A high governmental priority will be to educate citizens about environmental risks, economic and health dangers of resource degradation and the real cost of natural resources. Greater emphasis should be placed on promoting awareness, undertaking and competence in schools, colleges and training institutions. NGOs and public-spirited individuals can bring about significant measures on polluting units for adopting abatementprocedures/policies. A system of certification of goods that are environment friendly should be set up. Only then this vast country of ours and the whole world will become a pleasant and clean place to live in.
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