Mans reckless pursuit of material; comforts has polluted the air to alarming levels.

Growth
in industries, vehicles, urbanization is one of the major components which increase air
pollution. Thermal power plants, cement, iron industry, oil purifier industry, mine, and
petrochemical industry, are major causes of air pollution. In the olden days, human beings
did not face the problem of air pollution as the scope of pollution was limited, and nature
too continued to keep the environment balanced. At that time, due to limited pollution,
nature used to balance itself but today development is progressing on a vast scale,
requiring increase in production capacity. Humans are destroying natural resources for
industrial benefits without thinking, which has caused natural balance to deteriorate and the
air quality cannot escape from it. It is not that that air pollution is the problem of India only,
today the majority of the worlds population is in its grip.

Some types of air pollution are due to natural causes which are not in the hands of human
beings. Sand storms rising in the desert, smoke generated from the burning of fire and
grass in forests, give birth to certain chemicals, which make the air polluted. The origin of
pollution can be from any country but it has an impact everywhere. The disinfectant
chemicals found in Antarctica, where they have never been used, show the serious extent
that through air, pollution can reach from one place to another.

WHAT IS AIR POLLUTION?

Air pollution refers to the conditions when unwanted elements and particles are
stored up in the environment to the extent that it cannot be absorbed by the
ecosystem. The release of harmful substances leaves the air polluted. It causes health
problems and damages the environment, man, plants and animals. Air pollution has
changed the ozone layer, which has adversely affected the climate.

Atmosphere is an important part of the environment. Air is vital for human life. It is not
possible to imagine human life at airless places because humans cannot live longer
than 5-6 minutes without air. A person breathes an average of 20,000 times
throughout the day. During this breath, humans use 35 pounds of air. If this life-giving
air is not clean then it will take life instead of giving life.

Due to air pollution, some harmful substances are produced which cause significant
damage to our lungs. These elements are as follows carbon dioxide (CO2), chloro-
fluoro carbon (CFC), ladders, ozone, nitrogen oxides (NOx), suspended particulate
matter (SPM) and sulphur dioxide (SO2).

Gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide etc. are present in
our atmosphere in a certain proportion. If the proportion of their presence changes;
the atmosphere gets impure. These gases along with hydrocarbons, and dust mites
pollute the atmosphere.

AIR POLLUTION INFORMATION

Air is the basis of life. To stay healthy it is necessary to have clean air. A change in the
structure of air poses severe threat to health. Air pollution has become a grave
problem for developing countries ranging from India to developed nations such as
Japan, America and England. Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984) of India, smoke produced
from the fire in the forests of Malaysia and Indonesia (1997) are catastrophic examples
of air pollution. Air Pollution has occupied an important place in the topic list of Earth
Conference. Air Pollution is responsible for diseases of nervous, respiratory systems
and heart ailments, tuberculosis etc.

When natural elements, after mixing with the outer elements, get activated in a
destructive direction, leaving their normal actions, this action is called pollution. In
the context of this definition, air pollution is the state in which the internal structure of
the air is affected due to the presence of dust, smoke, toxic gas, chemical vapour,
scientific experiments etc, that is, when air becomes harmful for humans and its
environment due to excessive hydrostatic material.

The most dangerous aspect associated with air pollution in India is that we are lagging
behind other countries of the world in the fight against pollution. You can understand
this with the comparative example between India and China. Deaths due to loss of
ozone layer in India have increased 53 percent since 1990 and since 2005 there has
been an increase of 24 percent. While deaths from ozone loss in China since 1990 have
increased by 16 percent and since 2005 there is downward trend in them, similarly,
deaths from PM 2.5 particles have increased by 17 percent in China since 1990. At the
same time, the number of deaths of PM 2.5 particles in India has increased by 47
percent.
Air pollution in India is killing 12 lakh people every year. This is a kind of invisible
massacre, which must be stopped at all times. Because if it does not happen then that
day is not far away when the people of India will have to flee to avoid pollution and
seek refuge in other countries.