Air pollution is a growing threat to health throughout the world. It was considered a great threat after the terrible incidence of epidemics of asthma in USA and Japan in 1955 and death of about 4,000 people in London in 1952. In India, Bhopal gas tragedy alerted the country to the dangers of air pollution. No amount of money in compensation from Union Carbide can reverse the ill effects on the health of affected people.
Air pollution reduces the quality of air we breathe by limiting the availability of oxygen. Besides, we are forced to breathe in substances that are harmful to lungs. We often experience that exposure to smoke or fine dust immediately causes irritation to eyes, nose, throat, etc. while other pollutants may cause watering of eyes, burning in and blocking of nose, sneezing and headache. This may be followed by irritation in throat, change in voice, dry cough and so on. Some gases on deeper penetration cause irritable cough, difficulty in breathing, increased rate of respiration and other severe problems that may be fatal. These are the acute effects, which are immediately manifested after exposure to pollutants. Various studies have shown that most air pollutants cause respiratory problems. Long exposure may result in diseases like emphysema, bronchitis, chronic cough and asthma.
Smoggy polluted air also contributes to serious health problems such as allergies and heart diseases. One of the components of smog is carbon monoxide, which on breathing interferes with the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin in red blood cells. You may have experienced an after-headache when caught in a traffic jam or traveling on a busy road for a long time. This is due to the increase in the levels of carbon monoxide in heavily congested traffic. The levels may increase indoors due to cigarette smoking. That is why smoking is harmful also to the people around the smoker because ‘the second hand smoke’ is inhaled by them. You are familiar with other air pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen, lead, hydrocarbons, particulate matter produced by automobile exhaust, and sculpture dioxide produced on .burning of coal or oil containing sculpture in the health effects of these pollutants. Perhaps, you may not be familiar with the names of many diseases.