Smog and Acid Rain

Posted on June 10, 2008 by Rashid Faridi

Particularly for large metropolitan cities, smog and poor air quality is a pressing environmental problem. Smog primarily consists of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds chemically interacting with heat from sunlight forming ground level ozone. Smog is that familiar haze most commonly found surrounding large cities, particularly in the summer time. Smog and ground level ozone contribute to all kinds of respiratory problems ranging from temporary discomfort, asthma, to long-lasting, permanent lung damage. The pollutants in smog come from vehicle emissions, smokestack emissions, paints, and solvents – most of which started out as crude oil.

Much of the eastern United States is affected by another environmental problem known as acid rain. Acid rain can damage crops, forests, wildlife populations, and cause respiratory and other illnesses in humans. When sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with water vapor and other chemicals in the presence of sunlight, various acidic compounds form in the air and come to the earth as acid rain. The pollutants of acid rain are derived from coal fired power plants. Natural gas emits virtually no sulfur dioxide and up to 80 percent less nitrogen oxides than the combustion of coal. So the increased use of natural gas would provide for fewer acid rain causing emissions.

The source of energy to use for reducing pollution and maintaining a clean and healthy environment is natural gas. Natural gas is also domestically abundant making it a secure source of energy. The environmental benefits of using natural gas over other sources of energy, particularly other fossil fuels are numerous.

Since the use of natural gas emits only low levels of nitrogen oxides and virtually no particulate matter, it can be used to help combat smog formation in those areas where ground level air quality is poor. Electric utilities, motor vehicles, and industrial plants make up the main sources of nitrogen oxides. To combat smog production, especially in urban centers where it is needed the most, increased natural gas use in the electric generation sector, a shift to cleaner natural gas vehicles, and increased industrial natural gas use could all serve to improving the air quality. Summertime, when natural gas demand is at its lowest and smog problems are the greatest, would be a good time for industrial plants and electric generators to use natural gas to fuel their operations instead of using the more polluting fossil fuels. This would effectively reduce smog emissions resulting in clearer, healthier air around the urban centers.

A study conducted in 1995 by the Coalition for Gas-Based Environmental Solutions found that in the Northeast, smog and ozone-causing emissions could be reduced by 50 to 70 percent through the seasonal switching to natural gas.

Particulate emissions such as soot, ash, metals, and other airborne particles also cause the degradation of air quality in the United States. Natural gas emits virtually no particulates into the atmosphere. Emissions of particulates from natural gas combustion are 90 percent lower than from the combustion of oil, and 99 percent lower than burning coal. Increased natural gas use in place of other dirtier hydrocarbons can help to reduce particulate emissions in the United States.

Companies like Triple Diamond Energy Corporation are concerned about the levels of smog and acid rain. They look at increasing their supply of the more environmentally beneficial natural gas and to make it more accessible to the northeastern part of the United States.

Effects of Acid Rain on an Ecosystem

Acid rain is a widespread problem found all over the world. It is the result of chemicals from burned fossil fuel mixing with moisture in the atmosphere and falling to the ground as rain, snow, sleet, etc. Acid deposition is a more precise name than acid rain because acid can fall to the ground as rain, snow, sleet, hail, and anything else. It can also combine with dry particles and fall to the ground; therefore it is called dry deposition whereas acid coming down in rain is called wet deposition.

People have known about air pollution since the philosopher Seneca remarked on Rome’s polluted skies in AD 61. Even though people were aware of the problem they ignored they it. Up until the last century people have ignored the problem of air pollution including air pollution’s most dangerous problem, acid rain. Acid rain is devastating to the ecosystem and is one of the most pressing environmental issues today.

Acid rain forms in the atmosphere from chemicals created by the burning of fossil fuels. When coal and oil are burned they release sulfur dioxide (SO2) and two nitric oxides, nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) designated by the symbol NOX. These dangerous chemicals come from the smoke that pours from factory chimneys and exhaust from car tail pipes. Once released, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with other chemicals in the air, water vapor, and sunlight to produce sulfuric and nitric acids, the acids in acid rain. The more sulfuric and nitric acids present, the higher the acidity of the rain. On a 14 point scale, 7 being neutral, anything less than 7 is considered acidic and anything more is considered alkaline. Battery acid is about 1 acidity and lemon juice is around 2 acidity. Regular rain is between 5 and 6 acidity. Acid rain is somewhere between 2 and 5.5. The worst case of acid rain ever recorded was in Wheeling, West Virginia where the rain had an acidity of 2.2. These levels of acidity seriously harm plants, trees, and all other life.

All over the world, acid levels are rising which endangers trees, lakes, streams, drinking water supplies, monuments, and animal life. Basically everything is effected by acid rain. Not only life is effected, but also buildings (such as national monuments), roads, even metals on cars and bridges.

When acid rain occurs, it doesn’t immediately effect acidity in lakes and streams. The water dilutes the acid so only over a long period of time can the water become too acidic. In the spring, something called acid shock can happen. Snow, that contains acid, can build up and when it melts all the acid runs into the streams and lakes at one time. When acid levels are too high it can kill small organisms like algae. When the algae dies other bigger organisms that eat algae die from starvation. It is a big chain reaction until all life is gone. Some lakes, i.e. the lakes in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State have been stripped of all life because the acid levels are too high. Acidic water that seeps into soil can also kill trees that are nearby.

Buildings are taking a toll from acid rain. The acid corrodes the stones and cement. Some buildings have been permanently weakened beyond repair. There are definitely many effects from acid rain, but the question is, how do we fix them?

Now that acid rain is widely acknowledged throughout the world, more and more people are doing something about it. For example: In November 1990, President George Bush signed the Clean Air Act, which had an annual cost of up to $25 billion. It cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 million tons a year. It also cut nitrogen oxides by 2 million tons a year. Europe agreed to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 30% of 1980 levels, and a freeze (not increasing) on nitrogen oxide emissions at 1987 levels.

Now all factories are required to be outfitted with scrubbers, which cost $150 million each. They are very expensive to maintain, but they remove 95% of sulfur dioxide after coal is burned. In scrubbers, poisonous gases are sprayed with a mix of water and lime. Together the sulfur, water, and lime form a gray, gooey substance called sludge.

Another solution to lake acidity is liming. Lime is very alkaline, so when poured into lakes it cancels out the acidity. The problem with liming is that it is very expensive and only temporarily reduces acidity.

Another solution is something called a catalytic converter, which is required on all cars. The converter is mounted on the exhaust pipe forcing all exhaust to pass through it. This converts nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxides, and unburned hydrocarbons into a cleaner state.

As you can see, there are many attempts to clean our air, but the atmosphere is still a long way from being clean. If attempts to clean our air continue, our rain may return to normal and acidic lakes, over a period of time, would return to normal. But if our attempts to clean up our own mess fail, we may cause ourselves to kill all our natural resources, which would lead to the extinction of all life on this planet, even humans.

links:http://ezinearticles.com/?Smog-and-Acid-Rain&id=902900

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Smog

Cause,Effect and Solutions of Acid rain

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Afghanistan’s natural environment a victim of war: activists

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Rashid Faridi

As countries mark World Environment Day on June 5, conservationists and officials say Afghanistan faces many and unique challenges.
AFP/File Photo: A boy walks in an algae polluted river in Kabul
The post-Taliban government has passed the country’s first environmental law and set up a protection agency, but a lack of capacity and expertise dog efforts to recover from the past and cope with the future, they said.

“The environmental loss was second to the human loss,” said Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, founder of Save the Environment Afghanistan, of the decades of war that started with the Soviet invasion of the late 1970s.

Before the conflict, three percent of the country was covered in natural forest, Malikyar said. This has been cut back to 1.5 percent through illegal logging and degradation including from people fleeing war.

“When there was fighting, people migrated to hidden places,” he said. “Smugglers and mafia cut trees and took them to neighbouring countries.”

The unlawful timber trade is continuing, with some reports of police involvement.

So is the smuggling of falcons with about 1,000 of the birds trapped in the country’s deserts every year and smuggled into Pakistan en route to the United Arab Emirates where they can fetch 500 to 30,000 dollars each, Malikyar said.

Another victim has been the endangered snow leopard, native to this area.

“Before the war we had 500 snow leopards,” Malikyar said. “Now there is no exact figure but they are estimated at 80 to 120.”

The pelts of the elusive animals are however not too hard to come by. In one of dozens of fur shops in Kabul that are filled with sheep, mink and fox, a shopkeeper recently displayed one priced at 2,000 dollars.

At a market for international soldiers at the US military base at Bagram north of Kabul about 180 were seized over a recent two-week period, said Zahid Ullah Hamdard from the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA).

“There is no legislation to control the export of endangered species.”

There is also no wildlife inventory but efforts are under way, led by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, to survey animal populations.

Drought, desertification and deforestation have long been problems, particularly for the 80 percent of the population who live off the land, but one of the biggest new challenges is pollution, Hamdard said.

Four million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, many of them flocking to Kabul which is now jammed with four million people, several times more than it was built to accommodate.

Air pollution is fed by roads choked with traffic and the burning of wood and plastic in the absence of electricity; garbage is piled in the streets and rivers; water supplies are often filthy.

“In the rapid development of the past six or seven years, the environmental impact has not been taken into account,” Hamdard said. “We will again need to invest resources to recover what we have damaged.”

The government — already dealing with insecurity and widespread poverty — had however taken some “bold steps” to protect the environment, he said.

One was establishing NEPA in April 2005 and the other was passing the Environment Law, the final version of which came into force in 2007.

There were also moves under way to pass environmental impact assessment regulations for new projects and to protect significant areas, such as a group of startling blue lakes at Band-i-Amir in the central province of Bamiyan.

Discussions are meanwhile under way between Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Tajikistan to form a transboundary park in the Pamir mountains, Hamdard said.

Afghanistan largely lacks the resources and expertise it needs to tackle its environmental problems, he said.

And there is general lack of understanding of the importance of environmental protection, with awareness-raising key to events planned for World Environment Day.

“During the last 25 or 30 years environment was ignored and neglected and this needs time, capacity and resources to recover,” Malikyar said.

Of efforts so far, he said: “It is not enough for a war-stricken country but it can be a step forward.”
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People of Maghalaya

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Rashid Faridi

The Khasi, Jaintia, Bhoi, War collectively known as the Hynniewtrep people predominantly inhabit the districts of East Meghalaya, also known to be one of the earliest ethnic group of settlers in the Indian sub-continent, belonging to the Proto Austroloid Monkhmer race.The Garo Hills is predominantly inhabited by the Garos, belonging to the Bodo family of the Tibeto-Burman race, said to have migrated from Tibet. The Garos prefer to call themselves as Achiks and the land they inhabit as the Achik-land.
The Khasi-Pnars
The Khasis inhabit the eastern part of Meghalaya, in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. Khasis residing in Jaintia hills are now better known as Jaintias. They are also called Pnars. The Khasis occupying the northern lowlands and foothills are generally called Bhois. Those who live in the southern tracts are termed Wars.Again among the Wars, those living in the Khasi Hills are called War-Khasis and those in the Jaintia Hills, War-Pnars or War-Jaintias. In the Jaintia Hills we have Khyrwangs, Labangs, Nangphylluts, Nangtungs in the north-eastern part and in the east. In the Khasi Hills the Lyngngams live in the north-western part. But all of them claim to have descended from the ‘Ki Hynniew Trep’ and are now known by the generic name of Khasi-Pnars or simply Khasis. They have the same traditions, customs and usage with a little variation owing to geographical divisions.

Dress: The traditional Khasi male dress is ‘Jymphong’ or a longish sleeveless coat without collar, fastened by thongs in front. Now, the Khasis have adopted the western dress. On ceremonial occasions, they appear in ‘Jymphong’ and dhoti with an ornamental waist-band.The Khasi traditional female dress is rather elaborate with several pieces of cloth, giving the body a cylindrical shape. On ceremonial occasions, they wear a crown of silver or gold on the head. A spike or peak is fixed to the back of the crown, corresponding to the feathers worn by the menfolk.

Food & Drinks: The staple food of Khasis is rice. They also take fish and meat. Like the other tribes in the North-East, the Khasis also prepare rice-beer, and make spirit out of rice or millets by distillation. Use of rice-beer is a must for every ceremonial and religious occasion.

Social Structure: The Khasis, the Jaintias and the Garos have a matrilineal society. Descent is traced through the mother, but the father plays an important role in the material and mental life of the family. While, writing on the Khasi and the Jaintia people, David Roy observed, ‘a man is the defender of the woman, but the woman is the keeper of his trust’. No better description of Meghalayan matrilineal society could perhaps be possible.

In the Khasi society, the woman looks after home and hearth, the man finds the means to support the family, and the maternal uncle settles all social and religious matters. Earlier in the conservative Jaintia non-Christian families, however, the father only visits the family in the night and is not responsible for the maintenance of the family.

Inheritance: Khasis follow a matrilineal system of inheritance. In the Khasi society, it is only the youngest daughter or ‘Ka Khadduh’ who is eligible to inherit the ancestral property.

If ‘Ka Khadduh’ dies without any daughter surviving her, her next elder sister inherits the ancestral property, and after her, the youngest daughter of that sister. Failing all daughters and their female issues, the property goes back to the mother’s sister, mother’s sister’s daughter and so on.

The Ka Khadduh’s property is actually the ancestral property and so if she wants to dispose it off, she must obtain consent and approval of the uncles and brothers.

Among the War-Khasis, however property passes to the children, male or female, in equal shares but among the War-Jaintias, only the female children get the inheritance

Marriage: Marriage within a clan is a taboo. Rings or betel-nut bags are exchanged between the bride and the bridegroom to complete the union. In the Christian families, however, marriage is purely a civil contract.

Religion: The Khasis are now mostly Christians. But before that, they believed in a Supreme Being, The Creator – U Blei Nongthaw and under Him, there were several deities of water and of mountains and also of other natural objects.
The Garos
The vibrant and virile ethnic people who reside in the Garo Hills are known as the Garos. The word Garo has been coined after the name of a small group of the Garos residing in the central part of the southern hills. Besides the Garo hills, there are Garo settlements in the plains of Assam and Bangladesh.The Garos call themselves Achik-mande. In the Garo language Achik means Hills and mande, Man. So, Achik-mande means the Hills people.

Dress: The Garo women used to wear a piece of cloth around their waists and puts on a blouse or vest. The men usually wear, in addition to cloth, a turban. On all festive occasions, the Garos, irrespective of sex, wear head dresses with rows of beads stuck with feathers of hornbill. Males and females – both wear bangles and earrings. Educated and well-to-do Garos in the towns wear western dress.

Food and Drink: The Garos have no inhibitions about food. Their chief meals consist of rice with onions, capsicum and salt thrice a day. Practically all types of animal foods are taken. Drinks are almost an everyday affair. The liquor is not distilled, but prepared by brewing food grains.

Birth, Marriage and Death: Birth is a matter of joy not only to the family, but also to the community. Till death the new-born baby belongs to the mother’s family, irrespective of sex, even after marriage. Lineage is always matrilineal like the Khasis and the Jaintias. Except amongst the Nayars in Kerala, this system is not found anywhere in the country. It is unique among the Meghalayans in the North-East.

Marriage within the clan is completely prohibited and severely punishable. Marriage is however, arranged with the formal sanction of the parents.(Read More About Clan here)

Death of a person is not only a loss to the family, but is also mourned by the entire community. Elaborate rituals are held. Before embracing Christianity, they used to cremate the dead body, in the presence of all relations of the deceased. Now-a-days, according to Christian practice, the body is buried.

Bachelors’ Dormitories: Till now, the institution of Bachelors’ Dormitories which is gradually disappearing amongst the tribes of North Eastern Region, are found in the Garo villages. In such dormitories young people stay and live together till they are married. They receive various training in the dormitories like protection of crops, construction of roads, organising festivals, sports and ceremonies.
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Wildfire Continues To burn North Carolina wildlife refuge

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Rashid Faridi

COLUMBIA, N.C. – A wildfire that has burned 30,000 acres in eastern North Carolina may smolder for months as it burns decayed vegetation that makes up the soil in the area, North Carolina Forest Service spokesman Bill Swartley said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT

The fire, which was about 30 percent contained, continues to burn in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, about 70 miles south of Norfolk, Va. The spread of the fire has slowed over the past few days and winds remain light, but it continues to threaten about 80 homes and businesses.

No injuries or structure damage has been reported.

Swartley warned that forecast temperatures near 100 degrees this weekend keep conditions ripe for the blaze, Swartley said. “When the fire comes near, the vegetation is that much more ignitable because they are already warm,” Swartley said.

Gov. Mike Easley has declared a state of emergency in three counties. He warned that driving could be difficult with smoke-filled roads, but officials said none were expected to be closed.

For the past few days, smoke from the fire has blown north into heavily populated areas along Virginia’s coast. But the winds have shifted, and forecasters expect the smoke to blow east toward the Outer Banks on Saturday.

Fire officials told residents that smoke from the blaze could linger in the area for months because the fire may smolder in the decayed vegetation that makes up the peat-filled soil. Peat is flammable, and over millions of years turns into coal, Swartley said.

“You won’t see open flame. The ground is just really hot — you can’t walk on it,” Swartley said.

The only way to stop the fire from burning in the soil is to flood it. Firefighters are pumping water from nearby Phelps Lake to extinguish the ground fire in some areas. However, the only thing that will put all of it out for good would be several inches of rain at one time, like from a tropical storm, Swartley said.

The fire was sparked by lightning a week ago.

In California, a wildfire that briefly threatened 50 homes in the mountains northwest of Los Angeles pass was contained early Saturday. The blaze in the Grapevine area along Interstate 5 in the Tehachapi Mountains had charred about 500 acres — less than a square mile — of grass and brush by the time it was declared surrounded.

Residents of about 50 homes in Digier Canyon were advised to leave but the threat ended and the fire basically had stopped growing by Friday evening.

Damp weather during the night helped keep the fire down.

The cause of that fire had not been determined.
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