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Ireland McBrayer

Prof. Jones

ENGL 1020

19 December 2019

What I’ve learned about pollution

Before taking Rhetoric and Composition I didn’t truly understand the importance of

pollution. I didn’t care much about it. I never knew it would be an English class that would teach

me the major effects and the importance of raising awareness to pollution. Within this semester I

had the opportunity to meet new people and help clean up our environment.

Pollution is one of the major social issues affecting us today. The issue has been made

worse by global warming resulting from human activities that are destroying the environment;

such as littering. Nature provides life to the animals and the human being when the environment

is polluted; it affects nature hence exposing human beings and animals to serious health issues.

Pollution is defined as the introduction of harmful or poisonous substances to the environment.

Measures have been put in place to address the issue, both causes and consequences of to protect

as well ensure the quality of life for human beings, animals and plants (Xiao et al., 2016).

While industrialization is a positive thing in life, it has contributed in a big to the

degradation of the environment. Massive wastes are released to the environment on a daily basis,

pollution the air and water, all of which are consumed by human beings and animals. These come

with severe illnesses, such as respiratory illnesses, some type of cancers, and skin illness (Jacobs
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et al.2018).. All these undermine the quality of life for people. Pollution, as a social challenge,

needs combined forces of different nations, especially the developed one that contributes

immensely to the production of greenhouse gases that are continuously threatening the quality of

life and bringing about many resultant health issues.

Air pollution and other forms of contamination; have not been given high emphasis hence

increased levels of pollutions. Awareness and sensitization programs have been ongoing, however,

a larger population still has no information regarding health risk resulting from global climate

changes, a major resultant of pollutions. As a result, people have been living in total disregard of

the biophysical and ecological systems that tend to affect their well being and health. The lack of

information, and don’t care attitudes of business people owning these industries has resulted in a

lack of very minimum action to prevent pollutions or mitigate people and animals against health

risk factors.

Climatic change that is continuously taking place in the globe today, has led to a number

of health issues through a different mechanism such as poor air quality and extreme weather events.

The town has led to increased cases and types of diseases, food insecurity, poor water quality and

alter vector-borne diseases. Going by these factors, it is undeniable that there are significant health

risks associated with exposure of human beings to the polluted environment. While both men and

women have been affected by pollution, the extent and effect of pollutions appear differently to

the two genders. For example, women are increasingly suffering from higher rates of malnutrition

and anemia and most sensitive to the food insecurity brought about by climatic changes due to an

increase in nutrition’s needs that comes with childbirth and menstruation. Women more than men

are at high risk of anemia which is closely associated with cognitive impairments such as poor
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attention span, poor educational outcomes, and reduced working memory. In areas where women

are farmers, they are at high risk of livelihoods due to climate-related crop failures which result in

a lack of food and basics needs that guarantee their health and wellbeing.

From the above argument, it is clear that there is a need for measures to control pollution,

to ensure everyone is safe Pollutions control can be described as are actions that are taken to limit

the damage done to the environment by harmful substances and energies that have been discharged

to the environment (Barron et al. 2018). It is also important to note that if nothing is done to reverse

and fight the effects of pollutions, the coming generation will not have a habitable environment.

By controlling pollution, the human being will be fighting global warming, ensuring clean air,

cleaner water and the general well being of human beings. Pollution control is an urgent measure

that must involve a number of measures and decisions. One of the aims of pollution control is to

prevent harmful substances from escaping into the environment or form energy that is harmful to

life. It should also be aimed at containing and recycling substances that threaten life if released to

the environment in excessive quantities. Pollution control is also a measure to prevent the release

of toxic materials into the environment substances that persist and are toxic to living things. The

knowledge and technology needed to put these decisions to work are now available. Pollution

control does not mean an abandonment of existing productive human activities but their reordering

so as to guarantee that their side effects do not outweigh their advantages.

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Citation

Barron, A. R., Fawcett, A. A., Hafstead, M. A., McFarland, J. R., & Morris, A. C. (2018). Policy

insights from the EMF 32 study on US carbon tax scenarios. Climate Change

Economics, 9(01), 1840003.

Jacobs, E. T., Burgess, J. L., & Abbott, M. B. (2018). The Donora Smog Revisited: 70 Years

After the Event That Inspired the Clean Air Act. American journal of public

health, 108(S2), S85-S88.

Ringquist, E. J. (2016). Environmental Protection at the State Level: Politics and Progress in

Controlling Pollution: Politics and Progress in Controlling Pollution. Routledge.

Xiao, Q., Liu, Y., Mulholland, J. A., Russell, A. G., Darrow, L. A., Tolbert, P. E., & Strickland,

M. J. (2016). Pediatric emergency department visits and ambient Air pollution in the US

State of Georgia: a case-crossover study. Environmental Health, 15(1), 115.

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