Pollution+Interview

Interviewer - Lulin Interviewee – Mr.Winterfield

Q1: What causes air pollution ?

To use one word - HUMANS. Air pollution is spewed from factories, powerplants, refineries, automobiles and other vehicles with internal combustion engines, and even agricultural practices (cows produce a great deal of methane, considered to be a greenhouse gas).

Q2: What does air pollution cause?

Air pollution causes a number of different issues, including acid rain, smog, health issues (cancer, asthma, emphysema, etc), global warming, deterioration of the ozone layer (which causes increases in solar ultraviolet radiation?, changes in weather and weather patterns, and many others.

Q3: Are there any good outcomes in badly polluted air?

No, I can’t see a positive outcome, unless you think global warming is a good thing. However, there is a lot of support for the CAUSES of pollution. Industry is more or less completely responsible for a nation’s GDP. Electricity is an important part of raising people’s standards of living.

Q4: What places in Earth have the least amount of air pollution? What places have the most?

Lesser inhabited locations have lower pollution concentrations, while urban, industrialized locations have greater concentrations. For example, you will find the cleanest air in the middle of Antarctica. You will find some of the worst pollution around Asian industrialized cities, such as Beijing, Ho Chin Min City (Saigon), Shanghai, Bangkok, etc, as well as American cities such as NYC, LA…

Q5: What would future consequences be if the air is continuously littered?

Life as we know it would be severely altered. In the Asian cities I mentioned above, you already see people walking and driving around with a cloth over their faces to filter the pollution. But additional pollution will change our weather (more powerful hurricanes, for example), raise the global temperatures, melt the glacial water deposits, lead to the extinction of a large number of organisms, decrease human enjoyment of such places as parks and the beach, increase rates of disease, and many other things. Pretty much, all negative.

Q6: Do you know any places or organizations that i can find more information about pollution(generally)? Or websites?

Start with the US EPA. Check out the Clean Air Act. Also the NY DEC. Greenpeace. AlGore.com. KyotoProtocol.com. Sierra Club. The WHO (World Health Organization). See http://www.webdirectory.com/pollution.