Air pollution is the introduction into the atmosphere of materials that will produce an adverse effect on the health and well being of humans or interfere with their normal activities.
The greenhouse effect is burdening the air with increased carbon dioxide.
Other ways by which human pollute the air are by using materials that fill the air with smoke, releasing sulphur dioxide by smelting copper, using automobiles, jet planes, power stations, steel plants and incinerators.
These sources give off air pollutants in the form of particulates or gases.
Particulate samples are settling particles of soot from coal, particles of cement that settles as fine, white dust, or other particles like pollen.
Gaseous pollutants may include sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, methane gas, and other gases which diffuse into air and form corrosive acids when combined with water.
Another example of air pollution is smog.
You may probably wonder what smog means.
Well for the information of everybody, smog is a word formed from smoke and fog.
It means a combination of smoke, heavy particles, sulphur dioxide and fog.
In areas where smog is chronic, plants often develop spots on their leaves and eventually die.
Also, pollution by means of air is by radiation.
The air may also carry radioactive particles.
In every atomic explosion, radioactive particles are formed in a huge cloud.
Some of these particles are carried to far distances as fallout.
Radioactive particles, like strontium 90, may be produced in some nuclear explosions.
Strontium 90 is taken up from the soil by plants and reaches the body tissues of humans once they feed on the flesh or milk of the herbivore consumer of the contaminated plant.
Once they have invaded the body tissues of a certain person particularly the bones, strontium 90 can cause cancer or destroy tissues and even be fatal.
That is why proper precaution must be done in this kind of situation.