This research paper was written by sixth grade student Lukas C.
 

We think we are killing the earth but we are really killing ourselves

Air pollution negatively impacts the atmosphere and human health, but air pollution and the damage it causes can be reduced by simple life changes. There are many people with the power that can try to stop pollution, but they don’t. Because these leaders aren’t doing anything, we have to take matters in our own hands, we have to try to fix this problem, or at least mitigate it.

What causes air pollution?
Before we go into all of the big effects of air pollution, let’s look at the causes of air pollution. One of the biggest causes of air pollution is food. The 10 foods with the largest impact on the environment are all cuts of beef. Beef is one of the most environmentally unfriendly foods. To make beef you have to breed and feed cattle. When cows burp or pass gas, they emit a little bit of methane into the atmosphere. Every molecule of methane is terrible for the environment and is as bad as 25 molecules of CO₂. Because of the increased amount of cow breeding, we are emitting more CO₂ and methane. Big companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Saudi Aramco have big factories and mines that emit a lot of CO₂. For example, when the Coca-Cola company makes their cans, for every can made, 170g of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere. They make 200 billion aluminum cans every year. This is 6,700 cans every second - enough to go around the planet every 17 hours. If there are 6,700 cans used every second, there are 1,139 kilograms of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere in a second, just from cans!

Why air pollution is bad? 
The first and most important reason is that it puts the earth's natural greenhouse effect warming system seriously out of balance. Infrared radiation comes from the sun to the earth through visible light. The visible light goes straight through our atmosphere and is partly absorbed by the earth which heats up. This greenhouse effect traps this heat inside earth’s atmosphere. When the reflected heat hits the atmosphere, gasses like CO₂ and H20 absorb some of the radiation while much of the radiation escapes. Because we have been emitting too much CO₂ into the atmosphere, however, instead of the heat getting absorbed or escaping, the excess CO₂ reflects more of the heat back to the earth. This is called global warming. 

One of the other reasons is because air pollution is a great health risk. If current particulate pollution levels persist, today’s global population will lose a total of 12.8 billion years of life. On average one person could lose 1.8 years of life from particulate pollution. You lose more years of your life from air pollution than alcohol and drug use or any disease. We know this because researchers used the scientific method and tested whether air pollution was bad or not. They realized from their research that reducing air pollution can lead to dramatic health benefits, and much quicker than expected. Researchers analyzed the impact of air pollution interventions carried out in the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. These interventions successfully reduced air pollution at its source, which resulted in significant health improvements. There was a 13 percent drop in all causes of mortality, a 26 percent decrease in heart disease, and a 32 percent decrease in strokes. In the US, a 13-month closure of a steel mill in Utah, reduced hospitalizations for pneumonia and bronchitis, decreased school absenteeism and lowered the risk of premature birth in pregnant women. In Georgia, a 17-day road closure plan resulted in fewer clinic and hospital visits for childhood asthma within four weeks. Travel restrictions in China showed similar improvements in lung function and fewer heart-related deaths. The lead author said, “We knew there were benefits from pollution control, but the magnitude and relatively short time duration to accomplish them were impressive.” There are a lot of bad effects of air pollution, but some people still don’t care. 

Counterargument
A counterargument is that some people in some corporations, feel that making money is more important than the environment. Air pollution negatively impacts the atmosphere and human health, and it can be reduced by simple life changes. Even though it could be solved by simple changes, some people aren’t willing to make those changes. The big companies that I previously talked about, make a lot of money from their business, so they wouldn’t be willing to give up their profits to save the planet. Their business pollutes the environment meaning they earn the profits but other people bear the costs. They also have employees that will lose their jobs if these companies shut down. This would also hurt the economy. People want companies to pollute less. But people creating new companies, think that existing companies pollute, so it’s not fair that they can’t make a company that pollutes. These people are being selfish, and aren’t thinking about the future. They are just doing what is best for themselves. When their actions come back to haunt them, there won’t be any money to worry about. Just death and destruction. If these people change their point of view, we can save the earth. If we stop now we can avoid a lot of the bad outcomes ahead of us. But we need to stop now before we get to a destructive point of no return. 

Solutions
One of the biggest contributors to global warming is cow breeding. The solution is pretty easy, it is just to stop eating beef. If we stop eating beef, or even at least reduce the amount of beef we eat, we can reduce the number of cows that are bred. Once this is done, the amount of methane and the amount of CO₂ emitted will go down a lot, but this still won’t be enough to solve global warming. The Balochistan Times solution is to plant trees near high polluting areas, for example, factories, fossil fuel wells, and fossil fuel fields. If we plant trees at the source of air pollution, we can reduce the amount of CO₂ that comes out of factories, and fossil fuel fields. These are the areas that are the most pollutive of the atmosphere, so if we start to get the CO₂ that they emit out of the atmosphere early, the CO₂ emissions will go down immensely. The one variable that will make the biggest impact is changing our lifestyles. There are so many parts of our everyday lives that contribute to air pollution and/or global warming. If we change these customs, the number of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere would go down by tremendous amounts. A couple of daily activities that harm the atmosphere are driving, using paper, and improper disposal of ink and batteries. We have to be aware of these acts and avoid doing them as much as possible. 

In summary, air pollution heavily impacts the atmosphere and human health. But if air pollution is alleviated, we will see dramatic health improvements. We can alleviate air pollution with simple life changes. Even if these changes are simple, it doesn’t mean that they are easy. Some people still aren’t willing to make these changes. But if we don’t make these changes, our world will look like a page out of a dystopian novel. We’re past waiting for other people to address this problem, the way forward must come from us. 

Please visit the 6B learning community sustainability website here to learn more about the projects our young activists have been working on for the future of our shared planet.

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Works cited:

"Plants better than technology for reducing air pollution." Balochistan Times [Baluchistan Province, Pakistan], 7 Jan. 2020, p. NA. Gale In Context: Global Issues, Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

"IITs, NITs will find solutions to air pollution: Prez." Pioneer [New Delhi, India], 20 Nov. 2019, p. NA. Gale In Context: Global Issues, Accessed 10 Feb. 2020.

Zimmer, Carl. “Air Pollution, Evolution, and the Fate of Billions of Humans.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2020.

"How Your Diet Impacts the Environment." NYTimes.com Video Collection, 10 June 2019. Gale In Context: Global Issues, Accessed 5 Feb. 2020.

"Health Benefits of Reducing Air Pollution." NYTimes.com Video Collection, 9 Dec. 2019. Gale In Context: Global Issues, Accessed 11 Feb. 2020.

McCarthy, Niall, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: Air Pollution Is The Greatest Human Health Risk.” Statista Infographics, 21 Nov. 2018.

McGee, Mike. “Earth's CO2 Home Page.” CO2.Earth, 5 Feb. 2020.