Smog over La

Section A: Declining Air Quality



The declining air quality can be held responsible for many things such as city smog and the greenhouse effect. Such problems are very definite in America since they are one of the top air–pollutant–creating countries in the world. The original list of air pollutants created by US industries was made up of arsenic, asbestos, benzene, beryllium, coke oven emissions, mercury, radionuclides (radioactive isotopes), and vinyl chloride. In the 1990’s this list was expanded to include 189 substances, and by the end of the 1990’s regulations were put in place for the “major sources”, which require the emission of no more than ten tons of any of these substances and no more than twenty five tons of any combination of them per year.



Air pollution that worsens the global air quality is mostly generated by the wealthier, more populated nations. America has a population of 275,372,000, making it one of the most populated countries; it is also the most powerful nation in the world. As a result almost every household in the United States own a car or two. Cars are major contributors to the ozone hole and when almost every household in one of the most populated countries in the world own one, the level of air pollution emitted would be paramount. As a result, many of the major cites in the US such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles have very bad smog that reduce visibility and increase health risks. In Los Angeles, for example, the smog causes eye and chest irritations for residents and exacerbates asthma. Attempts have been made to clear the smog, but no reasonable success has been achieved. There have been measures taken to stop the problem from getting noticeably worse, but it is not a long term option.



The smog in LA is caused fundamentally by the Californian sun. The heat of the sun creates a layer of warm air that acts as a seal, trapping the cold air in the basin of the Los Angeles harbour. This...