Man-Made Causes of Air

Pollution
By Mark Orwell; Updated May 03, 2018

Thomas321/iStock/GettyImages

Human activity is responsible for most of the world’s air pollution, both indoors and
outdoors. Everything from smoking cigarettes to burning fossil fuels tarnishes the air
you breathe and causes health problems as minor as a headache to as harmful as
respiratory, lung and heart disease.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline and kerosine produces most of the
world's air pollution.

Types of Pollutants
Man is at least partially at fault for most of the world’s major air pollutants. Carbon
dioxide is one of the most highly prevalent, comes from the combustion or burning of
fossil fuels and other organic materials. Nitrogen oxide and dioxide, while both natural
components of the Earth's atmosphere, occur in greater amounts due to human actions
and are the cause of smog and acid rain.

Pollutants also include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were widely used as refrigerants

and aerosol propellants. These chemicals damage the ozone layer, which is why the
Environmental Protection Agency banned them in 1978.

Particulates, microscopic particles of soot, pose yet another common hazard. Smoke
from burning coal and diesel fuel has been one major source of particulate emissions. In
addition to being harmful to breathe, particulates form a dark film on buildings and other
structures.

Causes of Air Pollutants

The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline is the single largest source of air
pollutants. Fossil fuels continue to be in wide use for heating, to operate transportation
vehicles, in generating electricity, and in manufacturing and other industrial processes.
Burning these fuels causes smog, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions.

Burning fuels also increases some heavy metal contaminants and the amount of soot in
the air. Power plants and factories emit much of the sulfuric air pollutants. In all,
industrialized nations – particularly the United States and the Soviet Union – are
responsible for most of the world’s air pollutants.

Pollution Effects
Smog is one of the most dangerous air pollutants to humans and other biological
organisms. It is made when coal and oil containing minor amounts of sulfur are burned.
The oxides of these sulfur particles form sulfuric acid, which is toxic to life and
damaging to many inorganic materials. Air pollution can damage human life, especially
in major cities where there is a conglomerate of industries and fumes from vehicles.

Pollution harms the living environment. Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and peroxyacl
nitrates enter leaf pores and damage plants that way. Pollutants also break away the
waxy coating of leaves that prevent excessive water loss, causing further damage to
crops and trees that are important to the surrounding environment.

Deadly Pollution Incidents

When man-made pollution aggregates over a city with a large population, dangerous
situations can develop quickly. Two historical incidents of major pollution-related deaths
and illnesses show how badly pollution can affect humans over a short period.

The first occurred in Donore, Pennsylvania, in 1948. Over several days, a high-pressure
weather system trapped a large mass of stagnant air over the city, leading to dangerous
levels of smog. The smoke from steel production had nowhere to go and accumulated
in the air, causing 20 deaths and 6,000 cases of illness. In London, in 1952, a similar
situation caused between 3,500 and 4,000 deaths in five days. While air pollution
illnesses and deaths usually don’t occur over such short periods of time, these are
examples of worst-case scenarios with the possibility of occurring again if air pollution
isn’t mitigated.

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Title
Disaster
Date of disaster
Nature of disaster
Bhopal Gas Disaster

Bhopal Disaster

3 December 1984

Human error

2.1 DISASTER PHASE:

The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident
in India, considered one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. It occurred on the night
of 2-3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. A leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals
from the plant resulted in the exposure of hundreds of thousands of people. A
government official declaration in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including
38,478 temporary partial and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling
injuries .There were mass funerals and mass cremations as well as disposal of bodies in
the Narmada River. 170,000 people were treated at hospitals and temporary
dispensaries. 2,000 buffalo, goats, and other animals were collected and buried. The gas
cloud was composed mainly of materials denser than the surrounding air, stayed close
to the ground and spread outwards through the surrounding community. The early
effects of exposure were coughing, vomiting, severe eye irritation and a feeling of
suffocation. Owing to their height, children and other people of shorter height inhaled
higher concentrations
Human–wildlife conflict
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search

Grand Canyon National Park hosts millions of visitors every year and is home to a population of Rocky
Mountain elk. Interactions between humans and the elk sometimes results in injuries.[1]

Human–wildlife conflict refers to the interaction between wild animals and people and the resultant
negative impact on people or their resources, or wild animals or their habitat. It occurs when growing
human populations overlap with established wildlife territory, creating reduction of resources or life to
some people and/or wild animals. The conflict takes many forms ranging from loss of life or injury to
humans, and animals both wild and domesticated, to competition for scarce resources to loss
and degradation of habitat.
Conflict management strategies earlier comprised lethal control, translocation, regulation of
population size and preservation of endangered species. Recent management approaches attempt
to use scientific research for better management outcomes, such as behaviour modification and
reducing interaction. As human-wildlife conflicts inflict direct, indirect and opportunity costs, the
mitigation of human-wildlife conflict is an important issue in the management of biodiversity and
protected areas.

Definition[edit]
Human–wildlife conflict is defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as "any interaction
between humans and wildlife that results in negative impacts on human social, economic or cultural
life, on the conservation of wildlife populations, or on the environment.Fund for Nature Southern
African Regional Programme Office . The Creating Co-existenceworkshop at the 5th Annual World
Parks Congress (8–17 September 2003, Montreal) defined human-wildlife conflict in the context of
human goals and animal needs as follows:[2]“Human-wildlife conflict occurs when the needs and
behavior of wildlife impact negatively on the goals of humans or when the goals of humans
negatively impact the needs of wildlife."
A 2007 review by the United States Geological Survey defines human-wildlife conflict in two
contexts; firstly, actions by wildlife conflict with human goals, i.e. life, livelihood and life-style, and,
secondly, human activities threaten the safety and survival of wildlife. However, in both cases,
outcomes are decided by human responses to the interactions.[3]
The Government of Yukon defines human-wildlife conflict simply, but through the lens of damage to
property, i.e. "any interaction between wildlife and humans which causes harm, whether it’s to the
human, the wild animal, or property." Here, property includes buildings, equipment and camps,
livestock and pets, but does not include crops, fields or fences. WAP

History[edit]
Human–wildlife conflicts have occurred throughout man's prehistory and recorded history. Amongst
the early forms of human-wildlife conflict is the predation of the ancestors of prehistoric man by a
number of predators of the Miocene such as saber-toothed cats, leopards, spotted hyenas amongst
others.[4]
Fossil remains of early hominids show evidence of predation; the Taung Child, the fossilised skull of
a young Australopithecus africanus, is thought to have been killed by an eagle from the distinct
marks on its skull and the fossil having been found amongst egg shells and remains of small
animals.[5]
A Plio-Pleistocene horned crocodile, Crocodylus anthropophagus, whose fossil remains have been
recorded from Olduvai Gorge, was the largest predator encountered by prehistoric man, as indicated
by hominid specimens preserving crocodile bite marks from these sites.[6]
The advent of farming and animal husbandry of the Neolithic Revolution increased the scope of
conflict between humans and animals. The crops and the produce formed an abundant and easily
obtained food source for wild animals. Wild herbivores competed with domesticated ones
for pasture. In addition, they were a source for diseases which affected livestock. The livestock
attracted predators which found them an easy source to prey on. The inevitable human reaction was
to eliminate such threats to agriculture and domesticated animals. In addition, land was converted to
agricultural and other uses and forests cleared, all of which impacted wild animals adversely. A
number of animal species were eliminated locally or from parts of their natural range. The deliberate
or accidental introduction of animals in isolated island animal communities have caused extinction of
a large number of species.[7]

Nature of human-wildlife conflicts[edit]

Causes[edit]
As human populations expand into wild animal habitats, natural wildlife territory is displaced.
Reduction in the availability of natural prey/food sources leads to wild animals seeking alternate
sources. Alternately, new resources created by humans draw wildlife resulting in conflict. The
population density of wildlife and humans increase with overlaps in geographical areas used
increasing their interaction thus resulting in increased physical conflict. Byproducts of human
existence offer un-natural opportunity for wildlife in the form of food and sheltered interference and
potentially destructive threat for both man and animals. Competition for food resources also occurs
when humans attempt to harvest natural resources such as fish and grassland pasture. Another
cause of conflict comes from conservation biased toward flagship or game species that often
threatens other species of concern [8]
 Diagram of Human Wildlife Conflict in Expanding American Cities

Outcomes of conflict[edit]

Asian elephant damages to houses

Human–wildlife conflict occurs with various negative results. The major outcomes of human-wildlife
conflict are:[9]

 Injury and loss of life of humans and wildlife [10]

 Crop damage, livestock depredation, predation of managed wildlife stock.
 Damage to human property.
 Trophic cascades.
 Destruction of habitat.
 Collapse of wildlife populations and reduction of geographic ranges.[11]
One of the initiators of the concept of man-animal conflict was Das and Guha.[12] They described the
two-sided impacts of this conflict. From one side, the source of conflict is the restriction on the local
people to access forest resources. On the other side, the source of conflict is the damage incurred to
them by wild animals.

Hidden Dimensions of Conflict[edit]

Human wildlife conflict also has a range of 'hidden' dimensions that are not typically factored in when
the focus is on visible impacts. These can include health impacts, opportunity and transaction
costs.[13] Case studies include work on elephants in northeast India, where elephant-man interactions
are seen to lead to cases of increased imbibing of alcohol by crop guardians with resultant enhanced
mortality in encounters.,[14] and issues related to gender in northern India.[15]

Conflict resolution or management[edit]

A traditional livestock corral surrounded by a predator-proof corral in South Gobi desert, Mongolia, to protect
livestock from predators like snow leopard and wolf.

The aim of conflict resolution or management is to reduce the potential for human-wildlife conflicts in
order to protect life and limb, safety and security of animal populations, habitat and general
biodiversity, and also to minimise damage to property. The preference is always for passive, non-
intrusive prevention measures but often active intervention is required to be carried out in
conjunction.[16]

Management techniques[edit]
Ecotourism by elephant safari through the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in West Bengal, India

Management techniques of wildlife are of two types. The first type are the traditional techniques
which aim to stop, reduce or minimize conflict by controlling animal populations in different ways.
Lethal control has the longest history but has major drawbacks. Other measures, less costly in terms
of life, are trans-location, regulation and preservation of animal populations. Modern methods
depend upon the ecological and ethological understanding of the wildlife and its environment to
prevent or minimize conflict; examples being behavioural modification and measures to reduce
interaction between humans and wildlife.
Potential solutions to these conflicts include electric fencing, land use planning, community-
based natural resource management (CBNRM), compensation, payment for environmental
services, ecotourism, wildlife friendly products, or other field solutions.[17]
In efforts to reduce human-wildlife conflict, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has partnered with a
number of organizations to provide solutions around the globe. Their solutions are tailored to the
community and species involved. For example, in Mozambique, communities started to grow
more chili pepper plants after making the discovery that elephants dislike and avoid plants
containing capsaicin. This creative and effective method prevents elephants from trampling
community farmers' fields as well as protects the species.[18]