INTRODUCTION :
You have already studied about environment in your earlier classes. Environmental studies deal with the sum of all social, economical, biological, physical and chemical interrelations with our surroundings. In this unit the focus
will be on environmental chemistry. Environmental chemistry deals with the study of the origin, transport, reactions, effects and fates of chemical species in the environment. Let us discuss some important aspects of environmental chemistry.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION :
Environmental pollution is the effect of undesirable changes in our surroundings that have harmful effects on plants, animals and human beings. A substance, which causes pollution, is known as pollutant. Pollutants can be solid, liquid or gaseous substances present in greater concentration than in natural abundance and are produced due to human activities or due to Natural happenings. Do you know, an average human being requires nearly 12-15 times more air than the food. So, even small amounts of pollutants in the air become significant compared to similar levels present in the food. Pollutants can be degradable, like discarded vegetables which rapidly break down by natural processes. On the
other hand, pollutants which are slowly degradable, remain in the environment in an unchanged form for many decades. For example, substances such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), plastic materials, heavy metals, many chemicals, nuclear wastes etc., once released into the environment are difficult to remove. These pollutants cannot be degraded by natural processes and are harmful to living organisms. In the process of environmental pollution,
pollutants originate from a source and get transported by air or water or are dumped into the soil by human beings.
ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION :
The atmosphere that surrounds the earth is not of the same thickness at all heights. There are concentric layers of air or regions and each layer has different density. The lowest region of atmosphere in which the human beings
along with other organisms live is called troposphere. It extends up to the height of ~ 10 km from sea level. Above the troposphere, between 10 and 50 km above sea level lies stratosphere. Troposphere is a turbulent, dusty zone containing air, much water vapor and clouds. This is the region of strong air
movement and cloud formation. The stratosphere, on the other hand, contains
dinitrogen, dioxygen, ozone and little water vapor.
Atmospheric pollution is generally studied as tropospheric and stratospheric pollution. The presence of ozone in the stratosphere prevents about 99.5 per cent of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiations from reaching the earth’s surface and thereby protecting humans and other animals from its effect.
Tropospheric Pollution :
Tropospheric pollution occurs due to the presence of undesirable solid or gaseous particles in the air. The following are the major gaseous and particulate pollutants present in the troposphere:
- Gaseous air pollutants: These are oxides of sulphur, nitrogen and carbon, hydrogen sulphide, hydrocarbons, ozone and other oxidants.
- Particulate pollutants: These are dust, mist, fumes, smoke, smog etc.
Global Warming and Greenhouse Effect :
About 75 % of the solar energy reaching the earth is absorbed by the earth’s surface, which increases its temperature. The rest of the heat radiates back to the atmosphere. Some of the heat is trapped by gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, chlorofluorocarbon compounds (CFCs) and water vapor in the
atmosphere. Thus, they add to the heating of the atmosphere. This causes global warming.
We all know that in cold places flowers, vegetables and fruits are grown in glass
covered areas called greenhouse. Do you know that we humans also live in a
greenhouse? Of course, we are not surrounded by glass but a blanket of air called the atmosphere, which has kept the temperature on earth constant for centuries. But it is now undergoing change, though slowly. Just as the glass in a greenhouse holds the sun’s warmth inside, atmosphere traps the sun’s heat near the earth’s surface and keeps it warm. This is called natural greenhouse effect because it maintains the temperature and makes the earth perfect for life. In a
greenhouse, solar radiations pass through the transparent glass and heat up the soil and the plants. The warm soil and plants emit infrared radiations. Since glass is opaque to infrared radiations (thermal region), it partly reflects and partly absorbs these radiations. This mechanism keeps the energy of the
sun trapped in the greenhouse. Similarly, carbon dioxide molecules also trap heat as they are transparent to sunlight but not to the heat radiation. If the amount of carbon dioxide crosses the delicate proportion of 0.03 per cent, the natural greenhouse balance may get disturbed. Carbon dioxide is the major contributor to global warming.
Besides carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases are methane, water vapour, nitrous oxide, CFCs and ozone. Methane is produced naturally when vegetation is burnt, digested or rotted in the absence of oxygen. Large amounts of methane are released in paddy fields, coal mines, from rotting garbage dumps and by fossil fuels. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are man-made industrial chemicals used in air conditioning etc. CFCs are also damaging the ozone laye. Nitrous oxide occurs naturally in the environment. In recent years, their quantities have increased significantly due to the use of chemical fertilizers and the burning of fossil fuels. If these trends continue, the average global temperature will increase to a level which may lead to melting of polar ice caps and flooding of low lying areas all over the earth. Increase in the global temperature increases the incidence of infectious diseases like dengue, malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness etc.
