16 Air Pollution

Learning Outcomes Like many fast-growing cities, Beijing is struggling to control its air
pollution.
© Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

16.1 Identify natural and human-caused sources of air pollution.
16.2 Explain how atmospheric circulation affects air quality. “You shouldn’t have to leave
16.3 Compare the effects of air pollution.
16.4 Evaluate air pollution control efforts and progress. your neighborhood to live in
a better one.”
– Majora Carter, Activist and
Community Advocate

349
 C A S E S T U D Y

Beijing Looks for Answers 2014, and then combined with weather dat
to map the movement of airborne pollutana
to Air Pollution Rhode and Muller could then model hourlyts.
p ol-
As the capital of China, Beijing is famous for its history, culture, lution exposures by population for all of eastern
cui- sine, and architecture. Increasingly, the city also has a global China, where 97 percent of the population lives. After evaluating
reputa- tion for its air pollution. Visibility is often limited to a few population size and exposure to the major pollutants, they used
hundred meters, and air pollution index values rank between World Health Organization models to project the likely number of
“unhealthy” and “hazardous” over half of the time (200 days/year deaths per year.
in 2014). In December 2015, schools closed because of air For the whole of China, this study calculated that air
pollution. Causes of pollution are well known: coal-burning power pollution contributes to 1.6 million premature deaths per year,
plants are the primary source, followed by industry, vehicles, and about 17 per- cent of all deaths. Numbers like these help
home oil and coal burners. Epidemiologists—and the city’s strengthen incentives for Beijing and other cities to push harder
residents—have long been interested in understanding the effects of for air pollution con- trols. Recent policy shifts have included
these conditions for the 25 million people in greater Beijing, and plans to eliminate coal- burning power plants (replacing them
for hundreds of millions more in other Chinese cities. The Chinese with renewable energy and also with nuclear power) and establish
government calculated that the economic cost of air pollution policies promoting electric cars and energy efficiency. The central
amounts to around 3 percent of China’s GDP. government also promises to improve the enforcement of rules, so
Understanding the overall impacts of this pollution requires a as to ensure that polluters comply with established health
lot of data. The Chinese government has developed a network of standards.
automated sampling stations, 945 in 190 cities across the country Beijing is one of hundreds of cities in the rapidly industri-
as of 2016, with hundreds more not yet in the network. Each alizing world to suffer from these conditions. In China, India,
station evaluates ambient (surrounding) air every hour and Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, rapidly growing cities are
automatically submits hourly reports on six of the most important powered by coal plants or by poorly regulated oil and gas burners.
air pollutants. Coal is often used for household heating and for industrial
For human health impacts, the most important pollutant in furnaces. Oil and gas production are also major pollutant sources,
most cities is PM2.5—particulate matter (tiny airborne particles) and regions that produce or process oil and gas often have
less than 2.5 micrometers (0.0025 mm) in diameter. These tiny especially poor air quality.
particu- lates can penetrate deep into lungs, obstructing breathing You can see real-time air quality index reports for cities in
and exac- erbating heart disease, asthma, and other conditions. China and others worldwide by looking up the Beijing-based non-
Also important is slightly larger but still breathable particulate governmental organization AQICN.org online (fig. 16.1). This
matter group
10 micrometers (0.01 mm) or less in diameter
(PM10). Together, PM2.5 and PM10 are the main
health con- cerns in most Chinese cities, and in most
other world cities, increasing illness and contributing
to deaths from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and
obstructive pulmonary disease.
Among the other major considerations for both
human health environmental quality are ozone (O3),
nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and
carbon monoxide (CO). Ozone, less stable than
normal oxygen (O2) molecules, is highly reactive.
It irritates sensitive tissues such as eyes, throat, and
lungs. Nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, also
highly reactive, contribute to the formation of acid
rain and damage plant tissues and buildings, as well
as health. Carbon monoxide bonds to blood cells,
restricting the flow of oxygen in the blood stream.
How many deaths result from these pollutants? A
2015 study by University of California, Berkeley sci-
entists Robert Rhode and Richard Muller examined
this question. The study drew on data from over 1500 350 Environmental Science
air monitoring sites, including most of the 945 nation-
ally networked sites and hundreds of additional sites
in China and neighboring countries. Hourly data from
these sites were collected for four straight months
in
FIGURE 16.1 Improved data monitoring makes it possible to
evaluate air quality in Beijing
and elsewhere. The Beijing-based organization AQICN.org
created this map to deliver real-time air quality data for China
and much of the rest of the world. Colors range from purple
and red (unsafe air quality) to green (good air quality).
Source: AQICN.org, U.S. Embassy Beijing, China Ministry of Environmental
Protection
 C A S E S T U D Y continued
began in 2007 by reporting data from the U.S. embassy in Beijing Further Reading:
but continues by reporting real-time air monitoring data provided
by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection and other Rohde, R. A., and Muller, R. A. 2015. Air Pollution in China:
agen- cies worldwide. Like the Rode and Muller study, this group Mapping of Concentrations and Sources, PLoS ONE 10(8):
draws on increasingly available monitoring data. By delivering it e0135749. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135749.
in stan- dard units, the site allows easy comparison of world cities.
The same group provides world air quality index data at
WAQI.info.

16.1 Major Pollutants in Our Air are produced in greater abundance by human activities. When we
refer to pollutants, we generally mean human-caused emissions.
∙ Air pollutants affect health and environmental In many Chinese cities, airborne dust, smoke, and soot often
quality. are ten times higher than levels considered safe for human health.
∙ The EPA regulates six major criteria Of the 20 smoggiest cities in the world, 16 are in China. China’s
pollutants. city dwellers are four to six times more likely than rural people
to die of lung cancer. Poorly regulated industrial cities of India,
∙ Mercury and organic compounds are examples of
hazardous air pollutants.
Beijing, Delhi, Bangkok, and other rapidly growing cities face
serious air pollution challenges today, but only a few decades ago,
many American and European cities also endured similar condi-
tions. Chronic bad air, and occasional severe smog events (see
section 16.2) gradually led to the adoption of pollution controls.
Legal enforcement has improved, and many students today don’t
realize how bad air quality once was in their home towns. Many
American and European cities still have bad air: major port cities,
oil and gas extraction areas, and industrial cities are particularly
bad (fig. 16.2). But in the past 40 years, air quality protections
have increased in number and in effectiveness, greatly improving
public health. In most developed economies, there are established,
legally enforceable rules to protect the air we all breathe. Indus-
try has also relocated to hungry regions of the developing world,
where environmental and health protections are poorly enforced.
In this chapter, we examine what major pollutants are, what
their sources are, and how we can implement policies to control
them. Air pollution impairs human health, damages crops and
eco- systems, and corrodes buildings and infrastructure.
Greenhouse gases pollutants are altering our climate. Aesthetic
degradation, such as odors and lost visibility are also important
consequences of air pollution. These factors rarely threaten life or
health directly, but they can strongly impact our quality of life.
They also increase stress, which affects health.
Many natural factors degrade air quality degradation, includ-
ing ash and gases from volcanoes (fig. 16.3) and desert dust.
Trees emit volatile organic compounds (terpenes and isoprenes),
and decaying vegetation in swamps produces methane, as do FIGURE 16.2 Poor air quality and photochemical smog are less common
termites and ruminant animals. Forest fires produce particulate in U.S. cities than they were 40 years ago, although they persist in many
matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. For the purposes major cities and industrial or port areas.
of this discussion, however, these sources are treated as © BananaStock/PunchStock RF
background lev- els. They are normally too diffuse to cause
severe damage to living systems, and most of the contaminants
discussed in this chapter
351 Environmental Science CHAPTER 16 Air Pollution 351
 to avoid local regulations. It soon became obvious that piecemeal,
local standards did not resolve the problem, because neither pol-
lutants nor the markets for energy and industrial products are con-
tained within state boundaries.
Amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act in 1970 essentially
rewrote the law. Congress designated new standards, to be
applied evenly across the country, for six major pollutants: sulfur
diox- ide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone (and its
precursor volatile organic compounds), lead, and particulate
matter. These standards were set according to health criteria and
environmental quality. Transportation and power plants are the
dominant sources of criteria pollutants (fig. 16.4). We’ll examine
each of these, and then we’ll look at additional pollutants that are
also monitored under the Clean Air Act.
Conventional pollutants are most abundant
National ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) identify maxi-
mum allowable limits for these (ambient air is the air around us).
These six conventional or criteria pollutants. The Clean Air Act
addressed these first because they contributed the largest
volume of air quality degradation and also are considered the most
serious threats to human health and welfare. Primary standards
(table 16.1) are intended to protect human health. Secondary
standards are also set to protect crops, materials, climate, visibility,
and personal comfort.
In addition to the six conventional pollutants, the Clean Air
Act regulates an array of unconventional pollutants, compounds
FIGURE 16.3 Natural pollution sources, such as volcanoes, can be
important health hazards. that are produced in less volume than conventional pollutants but
Source: U.S. Geological that are especially toxic or hazardous, such as asbestos, benzene,
Survey mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and vinyl chloride.
Most of these are uncommon in nature or have no natural sources.
We also distinguish pollutants according to how they are
Russia, Pakistan, and many other countries cause similar hazards. produced. Primary pollutants are those released directly from
While pollution contributes to about China 1.6 million deaths in
China each year, it contributes to an estimated 1.4 million deaths
in India. In India, the primary risk has historically been
Table 16.1 National Ambient Air Quality
particulate matter from household fires and other biomass
burning, but rapid industrialization is expanding the range of Standards (NAAQS)
pollutants. Primary (Health-Based) Standards (Allowable
Pollutant Averaging Time Concentrations)

The Clean Air Act designates standard limits PMa Annual geometric meanb 50 μg/m3
24 hours 150 μg/m3
Air pollution is one of our most diffuse and hard to control envi-
ronmental issues. Industry continues to challenge clean air rules SO2 Annual arithmetic meanc 80 μg/m3 (0.03 ppm)
in every country, and public attention is always needed to protect 24 hours 120 μg/m 3 (0.14 ppm)
the safeguards we now rely on. However, epidemiologists and CO 8 hours 10 mg/m3 (9 ppm)
economists are increasingly making it clear that pollution control 1 hour 40 mg/m3 (35 ppm)
rapidly pays for itself in social costs of health care and infrastruc-
ture damage. Cost-benefit analysis of air regulation is discussed NO2 Annual arithmetic mean 80 μg/m3 (0.05 ppm)
in section 16.4. 3O Daily max 8 hour avg. 157 μg/m3 (0.08 ppm)
There have been countless efforts throughout history to con- Lead Maximum quarterly avg. 1.5 μg/m3
trol objectionable smoke, odors, and noise, but nearly all of these a
Total suspended particulate material, PM2.5 and PM10.
efforts were local. For example, the 1963 Clean Air Act, the first b
The geometric mean is obtained by taking the nth root of the product of n numbers. This
national air quality legislation in the United States, was careful to tends to reduce the impact of a few very large numbers in a set.
c
An arithmetic mean is the average determined by dividing the sum of a group of data
preserve states’ rights to set and enforce air quality regulations. points by the number of points.
But polluting industries can easily move across state boundaries
Fuel Industry
Transportation Combustion
 Fires
Industry

Industry
Dust Fires Fuel
Combustion Transportation
Transportation
Agriculture
Fuel
Combustion

Particulate matter (PM2.5 + PM10, 26 m.t.) Lead (0.0008 m.t.) Nitrogen oxides (14 m.t.)

Fires Transportation

Industry
Solvents
Fires Transportation

Transportation Fires Fuel

Industry Combustion

Industry
Fuel
Combustion
Carbon monoxide (73 m.t.) Volatile organic compounds (VOCs, 16 m.t.) Sulfur dioxide (6 m.t.)

FIGURE 16.4 Major sources of primary “criteria” pollutants in the United States, and amount produced in metric tons (m.t.). Volatile organic compounds
and nitrogen oxides are important precursors of ozone, one of the six criteria pollutants.
Source: EPA Air Emission Sources, 2016
the source into the air in a harmful form (fig. 16.5). Secondary much as 90 percent of the sulfur in the air. The predominant
pollutants are converted to a hazardous form after they enter the form of anthropogenic sulfur is sulfur dioxide (SO2) from
air or are formed by chemical reactions as components of the air combustion of sulfur-containing fuel (coal and oil), purification of
mix and interact. Solar radiation often provides the energy for sour (sulfur- containing) natural gas or oil, and industrial processes,
these reactions. Photochemical oxidants and atmospheric acids such as smelt- ing of sulfide ores. China and the United States are
formed by these mechanisms (see fig. 16.2) are among our most the largest sources of anthropogenic sulfur, primarily from coal
important pollutants in terms of health and ecosystem damage. burning and smelting.
Many pollutants come from a point source, such as a smoke-
stack. Fugitive emissions are those that do not go through a
smokestack. By far the most massive example of this category is
dust from soil erosion, strip mining, rock crushing, and building
construction (and destruction). Fugitive industrial emissions are
hard to monitor, but they are extremely important sources of air
pollution. Leaks around valves and pipe joints, and evaporation
of volatile compounds from oil-processing facilities, contribute
as much as 90 percent of the hydrocarbons and volatile organic
chemicals emitted from oil refineries and chemical plants.

Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)

Natural sources of sulfur in the atmosphere include evaporation of
sea spray, erosion of sulfate-containing dust from arid soils, fumes
from volcanoes and hot springs, and biogenic emissions of
hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and organic sulfur-containing compounds.
FIGURE 16.5 Primary pollutants are released directly from a source into
Total yearly emissions of sulfur from all sources amount to some the air. Coal-burning power plants like this one produce about two-thirds of the
114 million met- ric tons. Worldwide, anthropogenic sources sulfur oxides, one-third of the nitrogen oxides, and one-half of the mercury emit-
represent about two-thirds of all the airborne sulfur, but in most ted in the United States each year.
urban areas they contribute as © Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH/Shutterstock.com
 Sulfur dioxide is a colorless, corrosive gas that is directly
damaging to both plants and animals (fig. 16.6). Once in the
atmo- sphere, it can react with atmospheric oxygen and water
vapor to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4), a major component of acid
rain. Very small solid particles or liquid droplets can transport the
−2
acidic sulfate ion (SO4 ) long distances through the air or deep
into the lungs, where it is very damaging. Sulfate particles and
droplets reduce visibility, sometimes dramatically. Some of the
smelliest and most noxious air pollutants are sulfur compounds,
such as hydrogen sulfide from pig manure lagoons or mercaptans
(organosulfur thiols) from paper mills (fig. 16.7).
Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
Nitrogen oxides are highly reactive gases formed when nitrogen
in fuel or in air is heated (during combustion) to temperatures
above
650°C (1,200°F) in the presence of oxygen. The initial product,
nitric oxide (NO), oxidizes further in the atmosphere to nitrogen
dioxide (NO2), a reddish-brown gas that gives photochemical
smog its distinctive color. In addition, nitrous oxide (N2O) is an
intermediate form that results from soil denitrification. Nitrous
oxide absorbs ultraviolet light and is an important greenhouse gas
(chapter 15). Because nitrogen readily changes from one of these
forms to another by gaining or losing O atoms, the general term
NOx is used to describe the gases NO and NO2. Nitrogen oxides
react with water to make nitric acid (HNO3), a major component
of acid rain.
Anthropogenic sources account for 60 percent of the global FIGURE 16.7 The most noxious pollutants from this paper mill are pungent
emissions of about 230 million metric tons of reactive nitrogen organosulfur thiols and sulfides. Chlorine bleaching can also produce extremely
compounds each year (see table 16.1). About 95 percent of all dangerous organochlorines, such as dioxins.
© William P. Cunningham
human- caused NOx in the United States is produced by fuel
combustion in

transportation and electric power generation. Because we continue

to drive more miles every year, and to consume abundant
electricity, we have had less success in controlling NOx than other
pollutants.
Excess nitrogen from agricultural fertilizer use and produc-
tion is also an important, but little understood, contributor to air-
borne NOx. Fertilizers washing from farmlands also cause excess
fertilization and eutrophication of inland waters and coastal seas.
Environmental dispersal of nitrogen from fertilizers also may be
adversely affecting terrestrial plants by fertilizing weedy and
inva- sive plants.
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, nonirritating, but
highly toxic gas. CO is produced mainly by incomplete combus-
tion of fuel (coal, oil, charcoal, or gas), as in furnaces, incinera-
tors, engines, or fires, as well as in the decomposition of organic
matter. CO blocks oxygen uptake in blood by binding
irrevers- ibly to hemoglobin (the protein that carries oxygen in
FIGURE 16.6 High concentrations of sulfur dioxide damage plants directly. our blood), making hemoglobin unable to hold oxygen and deliver
This soybean plant was exposed to 2.1 mg/m3 sulfur dioxide for 24 hours.
it to cells. Human activities produce about half of the 1 billion
White patches show where chlorophyll has been destroyed. metric tons of CO released to the atmosphere each year. In the
© William P. Cunningham United States, two-thirds of the CO emissions are created by
internal combustion
engines in transportation. Land-clearing fires and cooking fires Hydrocarbons in the air contribute to the accumulation of
also are major sources. About 90 percent of the CO in the air is ozone by combining with NO to form new compounds, leav-
converted to CO2 in photochemical reactions that produce ozone. ing single O atoms free to form O3 (see fig. 16.7). Many of the
Catalytic converters on vehicles are one of the important methods NO compounds are damaging photochemical oxidants. A general
to reduce CO production by ensuring complete oxidation of term for organic chemicals that evaporate easily or exist as
carbon to carbon dioxide (CO2). gases in the air is volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Plants
Carbon dioxide is the predominant form of carbon in the air. are the largest source of VOCs, releasing an estimated 350
Growing recognition of the health and environmental risks associ- million tons of isoprene (C5H8) and 450 million tons of terpenes
ated with climate change (chapter 15) have led to recent regula- (C10H15) each year, but normally concentrations are low.
tions on CO2, which are discussed below. The greater health threats from VOCs involve a large num-
ber of other synthetic organic chemicals, such as benzene,
Ozone (O3) and Photochemical Oxidants toluene, formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, phenols, chloroform, and
Ozone (O3) high in the stratosphere provides a valuable shield for trichloro- ethylene, which are released into the air by human
the biosphere by absorbing incoming ultraviolet radiation. But at activities. About
ground level, O3 is a strong oxidizing reagent that damages 28 million tons of these compounds are emitted each year in the
vegetation, build- ing materials (such as paint, rubber, and United States, mainly unburned or partially burned hydrocarbons
plastics), and sensitive tis- sues (such as eyes and lungs). Ozone from transportation, power plants, chemical plants, and petroleum
has an acrid, biting odor that is a distinctive characteristic of refineries (fig. 16.9). These chemicals play an important role in
photochemical smog. Ground-level O3 is a product of the formation of photochemical oxidants.
photochemical reactions (reactions initiated by sunlight) between
other pollutants, such as NOx or volatile organic compounds. A Lead
general term for products of these reactions is photochemical Our most abundantly produced metal air pollutant, lead, is toxic
oxidants (fig. 16.8). One of the most important of these reactions to our nervous systems and other critical functions. Lead binds to
involves splitting nitrogen dioxide (NO2) into nitrous oxide (NO) enzymes and to components of our cells, such as brain cells,
and oxygen (O). This single O atom is then available to combine which then cannot function normally. Airborne lead is produced
with a molecule of O2 to make ozone (O3). by a wide range of industrial and mining processes. The main
sources are

O O

O O
O
O O N O

O2
O O O 3 Photochemical
(Ozone) oxidants
Oxygen N O

N N O
N O
O O
Acid rain

O
N O
H
N
O O
NO O
(Nitric oxide) H H O
HNO3 H H
Volatile organic (Nitric acid)
H 2O
compound
Water
(VOC)
FIGURE 16.8 The heat of fuel combustion causes nitrogen oxides to form from atmospheric N2 and O2. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) interacts with water
(H2O) to form nitric acid (HNO3), a component of acid rain. In addition, solar radiation can force NO2 to release a free oxygen atom, which joins to atmo-
spheric O2, creating ozone (O3). Fuel combustion also produces incompletely burned hydrocarbons (including volatile organic compounds, VOCs). Both
O3 and VOCs contribute to photochemical oxidants, in reactions activated by sunlight. The VOC shown here is benzene, a ring of six carbon atoms with a
hydrogen atom attached to each carbon.
© Hisham F. Ibrahim/Getty Images RF
FIGURE 16.9 Many of our most serious pollutants are hazardous organic compounds that escape as fugitive emissions from petroleum facilities, such
as this one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
© Mary Ann Cunningham

smelting of metal ores, mining, and burning of coal and municipal Particulates small enough to be breathed in are monitored
waste, in which lead is a trace element, and burning of gasoline under the Clean Air Act. Particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in
to which lead has been added. Until recently, leaded gasoline was diameter, such as those found in smoke and haze, and produced
the main source of lead in the United States, but leaded gas was by fires, power plants, or vehicle exhaust, are among the most
phased out in the 1980s. Since 1986, when the ban was enforced, danger- ous particulates because they can be drawn into the lungs,
children’s average blood lead levels have dropped 90 percent and where they damage respiratory tissues. Asbestos fibers and
average IQs have risen three points. Banning leaded gasoline in cigarette smoke are among these dangerous fine particles.
the United States was one of the most successful pollution-control Reducing sulfur in coal and diesel fuel, which produces aerosol
measures in American history. Now, 50 nations have renounced droplets of sulfuric acid, is one important strategy for controlling
leaded gasoline. The global economic benefit of this step is esti- PM2.5 particulates.
mated to be more than $200 billion per year. Coarse inhalable particles larger than 2.5 micrometers but
Worldwide atmospheric lead emissions amount to about 2 less than 10 micrometers in diameter are known as PM10.
mil- lion metric tons per year, or two-thirds of all metallic air Heavier than PM2.5, they do not travel as far, and they are
pollution. Globally, most of this lead is still from leaded gasoline, typically found near roads or other dust sources. The American
as well as metal ore smelting and coal burning. Dust Bowl of the
1930s involved mainly this kind of particulates. At that time,
Particulate Matter farm- land soils were often left bare, especially during severe
Particulate matter includes solid particles or liquid droplets sus- drought, and billions of tons of topsoil blew away from
pended in a gaseous medium. Very fine solid or liquid farmlands. Soil con- servation on farmlands is one strategy for
particulates suspended in the atmosphere are aerosols. This reducing PM10; another strategy is better management of dust at
includes dust, ash, soot, lint, smoke, pollen, spores, algal cells, construction sites.
and many other sus- pended materials. Particulates often are the Dust storms can travel remarkable distances. Dust from
most obvious form of air pollution, because they reduce visibility Africa’s Sahara desert regularly crosses the Atlantic and raises
and leave dirty depos- its on windows, painted surfaces, and particulate levels above federal health standards in Miami and San
textiles. Juan, Puerto Rico (fig. 16.10). Amazon rainforests receive mineral
nutrients car- ried in dust from Africa; more than half the 50
million tons of
 dust transported to South America each year has been traced to
others are released in the form of metal fumes or suspended par-
ticulates by fuel combustion, ore smelting, and burning garbage,
coal, or other metal-laden materials. Among these, lead and mer- cury
are the most abundantly produced toxic metals.

FIGURE 16.10 A massive dust storm extends more than 1,600 km

(1,000 mi) from the coast of western Sahara and Morocco (the land mass
on the right side of the image). Storms such as this regularly reach the
Americas, and they have been linked to both the decline of coral reefs in
the Caribbean and the frequency and intensity of hurricanes formed in the
eastern Atlantic Ocean.
Source: Image courtesy of Norman Kuring, SeaWIFS
Project/NASA

the bed of the former Lake Chad in Africa. In China, vast dust
storms blow out of the Gobi desert every spring, choking Beijing
and clos- ing airports and schools in Japan and Korea. The dust
plume follows the jet stream across the Pacific to Hawaii and
then to the west coast of North America, where it sometimes
makes up as much as half the particulate air pollution in Seattle,
Washington. Some Asian dust storms have polluted the U.S. skies
as far east as Georgia and Maine.

Mercury, from coal, is particularly

dangerous
In addition to criteria pollutants or conventional pollutants, many
other substances are regulated to protect public health and our
environment. Standards for these pollutants continue to
evolve, as do definitions of which pollutants require regulation.
These changes reflect increases in certain pollutants, such as
airborne mercury; the introduction of new pollutants, such as
newly devel- oped organic compounds; and increasing
recognition of risks, as in the case of carbon dioxide.
Many toxic metals are released into the air by burning coal
and oil, mining, smelting of metal ores, or manufacturing. Lead,
mercury, cadmium, nickel, arsenic (a highly toxic metalloid), and
 Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that damages the Global air circulation also deposits airborne mercury on
brain and central nervous system at high doses. Minute land. Half or more of the mercury that falls on North America
amounts can cause nerve damage and developmental defects probably comes from Asian coal-burning power plants.
in children. About Similarly, North American mercury travels to Europe. A 2009
75 percent of human exposure to mercury comes from eating report by the U.S. Geological Survey found that mercury levels
fish. This is because aquatic bacteria are mainly responsible in Pacific Ocean tuna have risen 30 percent in 20 years, with
for con- verting airborne mercury (which falls or washes into another 50 percent increase projected by 2050. Increased coal
water bodies) into methyl mercury, a form that is taken up burning in China, which for years built new coal-burning power
and stored by liv- ing organisms. Methyl mercury plants at the rate of one or two per week, is understood to be the
accumulates in the tissues of fish, becoming especially main cause of growing mercury emissions in the Pacific.
concentrated in top predators. Large, long- lived, predatory The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that
fish contain especially high levels of mercury in their tissues, one in 12 American women has more mercury in her blood than
and these are most dangerous to eat. In a survey of the 5.8 μg/l considered safe by the EPA. Between 300,000
freshwater fish from 260 lakes across the United States, the and
EPA found that every fish sampled contained some level of 600,000 of the 4 million children born each year in the United
mercury. States are exposed in the womb to mercury levels that could
Tuna fish alone is responsible for about 40 percent of all cause diminished intelligence or developmental impairments.
U.S. exposure to mercury (fig. 16.11). Swordfish, shrimp, Accord- ing to the NIH, elevated mercury levels cost the U.S.
and other seafood are also significant sources of mercury in economy
our diet, and these species should be avoided. They also $8.7 billion each year in higher medical and educational costs
should be avoided because their populations are dwindling in and in lost workforce productivity. The EPA has been slow to
many areas. regulate mercury, however (see the What Do You Think? box).
Carbon dioxide, methane, and halogens are are now causing global climate change, with serious
key greenhouse gases implications for both human and natural communities (chapter
15).
Some 370 billion tons of CO2 are emitted each year from respira- Regulating CO2 has been a subject of intense debate since
tion (oxidation of organic compounds by plant and animal cells; the 1990s. On the one hand, policymakers have widely acknowl-
see table 16.1). These releases are usually balanced by an equal edged that climate change is likely to have disastrous effects. On
uptake by photosynthesis in green plants. At normal the other hand, CO2 is difficult to consider limiting because we
concentrations, CO2 is nontoxic and innocuous, but atmospheric produce abundant quantities, reductions involve changes to both
levels are steadily increasing (about 0.5 percent per year) due to technology and behavior, and CO2 production historically has
human activities and been closely tied to our economic productivity. Although future

What Do You Think?

FIGURE 16.11 Airborne mercury accumulates in seafood, especially
Politics, Public Health, and the Minamata slow-going approach is inappropriate for a substance like mercury, which
in top predators such as tuna.
is toxic at very low levels, and which should be eliminated as quickly as
Convention possible.
© McGraw-Hill Education

Meanwhile, on the global stage, United Nations negotiators began

The dangers of mercury have been understood for decades, but action has
working in earnest to control mercury by 2003, but negotiations stalled
been slow. In the United States, it wasn’t until 1994 that the EPA declared
until 2009, with U.S. delegates insisting on voluntary emissions controls.
mercury a hazardous pollutant, to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
Voluntary regulations are much like students writing their own tests and
Municipal and medical incinerators were required to reduce their mercury
assigning their own grades. It works well for individual students, but it
emissions by
doesn’t ensure that progress is being made.
90 percent within 5 years. Industrial and mining operations also agreed to
In 2009, with a change in U.S. presidential administrations, progress
cut emissions. However, the law did not address the 1,032 coal-burning
started up again, and finally in 2013–14, delegates from 140 countries
power plants, which produced nearly half of total annual U.S. emissions.
signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The agreement is named
In 2000, the EPA finally declared mercury from coal plants, like
for the city of Minamata, Japan, which experienced tragic cases of severe
that from other sources, a public health risk. But the agency opted for a
mercury poisoning in the 1950s. Like many industries at the time, a
“cap and trade” market approach, expected to reduce mercury 70 percent
chemi- cal factory in Minamata regularly discharged mercury-laden waste
in about 30 years, unlike the 90 percent reductions in 5 years required of
into the bay. In Japan, where people consume a great deal of seafood,
other sources. Cap and trade approaches set limits (caps) and allow utili-
this meant that the local population was directly exposed to unusually
ties to buy and sell unused pollution credits. This strategy uses a profit
concentrated levels of mercury. Babies whose mothers ate mercury-
motive rather than rules, and it allows industries to find the cheapest
contaminated fish suffered profound neurological disabilities, including
reduc- tion methods. It also allows continued emissions if credits are
deafness, blindness, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy (fig. 1). In
cheaper than emission controls. Public health advocates argue that this
adults, mercury poison- ing caused numbness, loss of muscle control, and
dementia. The connec- tion between “Minamata disease” and mercury thermometers. It also requires control of mercury released in gold min-
was established in the ing, where it is used to separate gold from ores and is often released into
1950s, but waste dumping didn’t end for another ten rivers with little or no regulation in developing areas. The
years. convention also requires that countries monitor and limit pollution from
The Minamata Convention establishes global rules for monitoring coal-burning power plants.
and reporting on mercury emissions. It calls for elimination of mercury The U.S. now falls under the international agreement, and standards
in many uses where alternatives exist, such as household batteries will be monitored by the international community, which after all is
and affected by U.S. emissions. Subsequently, in 2016, the EPA issued rules
requiring that most power plants capture most mercury from emissions,
along with fine particulate matter.
The Minamata Convention would seem an easy agreement to reach
because the dangers of mercury are well understood. But broad
agreements to control diffuse and widespread pollutants are often
difficult. Regulating air pollution often pits a diffuse public interest
(improving general health levels or child development) against specific
private interests (utilities that must pay millions of dollars per year to
control pollutants).
If you were in charge, how would you set rules for controlling mer-
cury emissions? Would you impose rules or allow for trading of mercury
emission permits, or would you allow voluntary self-regulation? How
would you negotiate the responsibility for controlling pollutants?

FIGURE 1 Minamata disease is a severe form of mercury poisoning, which

causes nerve damage and other conditions. The international treaty to control
mercury emissions was named after the city of Minamata, Japan.
© AP Photo
economic growth is likely to depend on efficiencies and new an important new source of atmospheric CH4. Since the
tech- nologies, these concerns remain an important part of the development of hydrofracturing (fracking) for natural gas and oil
debate. wells after about 2008, oil and gas producing regions around the
Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas that has world have introduced a great, but not well measured, amount
25 times the global warming effect per unit mass than CO2 has of methane to the atmosphere (see chapter 15).
(table 16.2). Like CO2, methane was not a primary consideration Since the midterm elections of 2010, many members of
when the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, but now these gases Congress have been intent on eliminating this and other pollution
are dominant factors in climate change. Methane occurs regulation, arguing that it is too costly for industry and the econ-
naturally as organic matter, such as plant material, decays in omy (see further discussion in section 16.4). Energy companies
the absence of oxygen. Wetlands and rice paddies produce and their representatives, in particular, have lobbied to prevent
methane, as does anaerobic (oxygen-free) digestion by termites legal limits on greenhouse gases. The 2011 congressional budget
and ruminant ani- mals such as cattle. Dramatic growth in proposed to slash EPA funding by one-third, in part to reduce pol-
livestock populations in recent decades and increasing rice lution monitoring and regulation.
production have sharply increased CH4 concentrations in the The question of whether the EPA should regulate greenhouse
atmosphere. Leaking nat- ural gas wells and pipelines are also gases was so contentious that it went to the Supreme Court in
2007. The Court ruled that it was the EPA’s responsibility to limit and admirals signed a report from the Center for Naval Analyses
these gases, on the grounds that greenhouse gases endanger public stating that climate change “presents significant national security
health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. The challenges” including violence resulting from scarcity of water,
Court, and subsequent EPA documents, noted that these risks and migration due to sea-level rise and crop failure.
include increased drought, more frequent and intense heat waves Since the Supreme Court ruling, the EPA is charged with
and wild- fires, sea-level rise, and harm to water resources, regulating six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
agriculture, wild- life, and ecosystems. In addition to these risks, oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexaflu-
the U.S. military has cited climate change as a security threat. A oride (table 16.2). These are gases whose emissions have grown
coalition of generals dramatically in recent decades.
Three of these six greenhouse gases contain halogens, a
group of lightweight, highly reactive elements (fluorine, chlorine,
bromine, and iodine). Because they are generally toxic in their
elemental form, they are commonly used as fumigants and disin-
fectants, but they also have hundreds of uses in industrial and
com- mercial products. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have been
banned for most uses in industrialized countries, but about 600
million tons of these compounds are used annually worldwide in
spray propellants and refrigeration compressors and for foam
blowing. They diffuse into the stratosphere, where they release
chlorine and fluorine atoms that destroy ozone molecules that
protect the earth from ultraviolet radiation (see section 16.2).
Halogen compounds are also powerful greenhouse gases:
They trap more energy per molecule than does CO2, and they per-
sist in the atmosphere for decades to centuries. Perfluorocarbons
will persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years. The global
warming potential (per molecule, over time) of some CFCs is
thousands of times greater than that of CO2 (fig. 16.12).
Developing rules and standards for greenhouse gases will
take time and considerable debate. Many strategies have been
proposed, including subsidies for alternative energy, reducing tax
breaks and other subsidies for fossil fuels, imposing a tax on coal,
oil, and gas, and cap-and-trade systems, including carbon-trading
markets. The last of these options has been the most acceptable,

CFC-11

CFC-12
CFC-113

HCFC-22
HFC-134a
HFC-23
HFC-125
Methane

Nitrous oxide
 Table 16.2 Global Warming Potential (GWP) of
Several Greenhouse Gases
Global warming Atmospheric
GAS potential1 lifetime (years)2
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 1 100
Methane (CH4) 25 124
Carbon dioxide (1)
Nitrous oxide (N2O) 298 1144
CFC-12 (CCl2F2) 10,900 100 0 4,000 8,000 12,000 16,000
Global warming potential (100-yr)
HCFC-142b (CH3CClF2) 2,310 18
1
Sulfur
A measure of radiative hexafluoride
effects, (SFa6)100-yr time22,800
integrated over horizon, relative to an 3200 FIGURE 16.12 Global warming potential of several CFCs, compared
equal mass of CO2 emissions. CO2 is set as 1 for comparison. to major greenhouse gases. Effects are integrated over a 100-year time
2
Average residence times shown; actual range for CO2 is decades to centuries. frame, in comparison to CO2.
Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 2011 Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center,
2011
and carbon trading is now worth billions of dollars every year.
Data remain inconclusive regarding whether this has produced an
overall decline in emissions.
Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) can cause
cancer and nerve damage
Although most air contaminants are regulated because of their
potential adverse effects on human health or environmental
quality, a special category of toxins is monitored by the U.S. EPA
because they are particularly dangerous. Called hazardous air
pollutants (HAPs), these chemicals include carcinogens,
neurotoxins, muta- gens, teratogens, endocrine system disrupters,
and other highly toxic compounds (chapter 8). The most persistent
compounds require special reporting and management because
they remain in ecosys- tems for long periods of time and
accumulate in animal and human tissues. The tendency to
bioaccumulate makes many of these haz- ardous air pollutants
especially dangerous. Most of these chemicals are either metal
compounds, chlorinated hydrocarbons, or volatile organic
compounds. Gasoline vapors, solvents, and components of plastics
are all HAPs that you may encounter on a daily basis.
Only about 50 locations in the United States regularly
measure concentrations of HAPs in ambient air. Often, the best
source of information about these chemicals is the Toxic Release
Inventory (TRI) collected by the EPA as part of the community
right-to- know program. Established by Congress in 1986, the
TRI requires
23,000 factories, refineries, hard rock mines, power plants, and
FIGURE 16.13 Harmful air toxics from large industrial sources, such
chemical manufacturers to report on toxin releases (above certain as chemical plants, petroleum refineries, and paper mills, have been
minimum amounts) and waste management methods for 667 toxic reduced by nearly 70 percent since the EPA began regulating them. Many
chemicals. Although this total is less than 1 percent of all chemi- smaller sources remain unregulated.
cals registered for use, and represents a limited range of sources, © Royalty-Free/Corbis
the TRI is widely considered the most comprehensive source of
information about toxic pollution in the United States (fig. 16.13). concentrations of toxic air pollutants are often higher indoors than
Most HAP releases are decreasing, but discharges of mer- outdoors. Furthermore, people generally spend more time inside
cury and dioxins—both of which bioaccumulate and are toxic at than out, so they are exposed to higher doses of these pollutants.
extremely low levels—have increased in recent years. Dioxins are In some cases, indoor air in homes has concentrations of
created mainly by burning plastics and medical waste containing chemicals that would be illegal outside or in the workplace. The
chlorine. The EPA reports that 100 million Americans live in EPA has found that concentrations of such compounds as chlo-
areas where the cancer rate from HAPs exceeds 10 in 1 million, roform, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, formaldehyde, and styrene
or ten times the normally accepted standard for action. Benzene, can be 70 times higher in indoor air than in outdoor air, as plas-
formal- dehyde, acetaldehyde, and 1,3 butadiene are responsible tics, carpets, paints, and other common materials off-gas these
for most of this HAP cancer risk. Furthermore, twice that many compounds. Finding less-toxic paints and fabrics can make indoor
Americans (70 percent of the U.S. population) live in areas spaces both healthier and more pleasant.
where the risk of death from causes other than cancer exceeds In the less-developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin
1 in 1 million. To help residents track local air quality levels, the America, where such organic fuels as firewood, charcoal, dried
EPA recently estimated the concentration of HAPs in localities dung, and agricultural wastes provide the majority of household
across the con- tinental United States (over 60,000 census tracts). energy, smoky and poorly ventilated heating and cooking fires are
You can access this information on the Environmental Defense the greatest source of indoor air pollution (fig. 16.14). The World
Fund web page at http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env- Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.5 billion people—
releases/hap/us.tcl. over a third of the world’s population—are adversely affected by
pollu- tion from this source. Women and small children spend
long hours each day around open fires or unventilated stoves in
Indoor air can be worse than outdoor air enclosed spaces. Levels of carbon monoxide, particulates,
We have spent a considerable amount of effort and money to con- aldehydes, and other toxic
trol the major outdoor air pollutants, but we have only recently
begun to address indoor air pollutants. The EPA has found that
 “dust domes”; winds cause mixing between air layers, precipitation,
and atmospheric chemistry. All these factors determine whether
pol- lutants will remain in the locality where they are produced or
go elsewhere. Often, a change in weather produces dramatic
changes in air quality (fig. 16.15). In this section, we examine how
atmospheric processes influence the concentration and movement
of pollutants.

FIGURE 16.14 Smoky cooking and heating fires may cause more ill
health effects than any other source of indoor air pollution except
tobacco smoking. Some 2.5 billion people, mainly women and children,
spend hours each day in poorly ventilated kitchens and living spaces
where carbon monoxide, particulates, and cancer-causing hydrocarbons
often reach dangerous levels.
© Chinese Tourism Press/Stone/Getty Images

chemicals can be 100 times higher than would be legal for outdoor
ambient concentrations in the United States. Designing and build-
ing cheap, efficient, nonpolluting energy sources for the
developing countries would not only save shrinking forests but
would make a major impact on health as well.

Section Review
1. Define primary air pollutants and secondary air
pollutants.
2. What are the six criteria pollutants in the original Clean Air Act?
Why were they chosen?
3. List several additional hazardous air toxins that are regulated.

removal of many air pollutants. Cities concentrate dust and

16.2 Atmospheric Processes pollutants in urban
∙ Inversions trap still, contaminated
air.
∙ Long-distance transport distributes pollutants.
∙ Reactive chlorine destroys stratospheric
ozone.
Topography, climate, and physical processes in the atmosphere
play an important role in the transport, concentration, dispersal, and
 FIGURE 16.15 Air quality can change dramatically when a shift in the
weather brings fresh air to a city. Here, Shanghai is shown before and
after a cold front brought in clean air, pushing smog out of the city.
© William P. Cunningham

Temperature inversions trap pollutants

Normally, air near the ground is warmed in the daytime, as the FIGURE 16.16 Atmospheric temperature inversions occur where ground-
ground absorbs solar energy and radiates it into the lower layers of level air cools more quickly than air at upper levels. This temperature
differential prevents mixing and traps pollutants close to the ground.
air. As air near the ground warms, it expands, becomes less dense,
and rises, causing turbulence or winds that circulate air. Circulation
also removes pollutants generated near the ground in a city, so it is
impor- tant to keeping a city livable. Sometimes, however,
temperature inversions occur. At night or on cold days, air near
the ground cools, or cold air may sink down into a valley from
surrounding hills. A stable layer of cold air settles near the ground,
while warmer air sits above. In these stable conditions, pollutants
can accumulate to very high concentrations. Inversions might last
from a few hours to a few days, until the weather warms or a
warm front moves in.
The most stable inversion conditions are usually created by
rapid nighttime cooling in a valley or basin where air movement
is restricted. Los Angeles is a classic example, with
conditions that create both temperature inversions and
photochemical smog (fig. 16.16). The city is surrounded by
mountains on three sides and the climate is dry, with abundant
sunshine for photochemical oxida- tion and ozone production.
Millions of automobiles and trucks cre- ate high pollution levels.
Skies are generally clear at night, allowing heat to radiate from
the ground. The ground and the lower layers of air cool quickly
at night, while upper air layers remain relatively warm. During the
night, cool, humid, onshore breezes also slide in under the
contaminated air, which is trapped by a wall of mountains to the
east and by the cap of warmer air above.

Day

Cooler
Altitude

Cool

Warm

Temperature

Night

Cooler
Altitude

Warm

Cool

Temperature
 Morning sunlight is absorbed by the concentrated aerosols compounds evaporate from warm areas, travel through the
and gaseous chemicals caught near the ground by the inversion. atmosphere, and
This complex mixture quickly cooks up a toxic brew of
hazardous com- pounds. As the ground warms later in the day,
convection currents break up the temperature gradient and
pollutants are carried back down to the surface, where more
contaminants are added. Nitric oxide (NO) from automobile
exhaust is oxidized to a brownish haze of nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
As nitrogen oxides are used up in reactions with unburned
hydrocarbons, the ozone level begins to rise. By early afternoon
an acrid brown haze fills the air, making eyes water and throats
burn. In the 1970s, before pollution controls were enforced,
afternoon concentrations of NOx and ozone in the Los Angeles
basin often would reach levels hazardous to health (see fig. 16.2).
Usually, inversions are minor nuisances for healthy people.
Sometimes, however, they can have dramatic effects (see
Exploring Science: The Great London Smog, later in this
section).

Wind currents carry pollutants worldwide

Dust and contaminants can be carried great distances by the
wind. Areas downwind from industrial complexes often suffer
serious contamination, even if they have no pollution sources of
their own (fig. 16.17). Pollution from the industrial belt between
the Great Lakes and the Ohio River Valley, for example,
regularly contami- nates the Canadian Maritime Provinces, and
sometimes can be traced as far as Ireland. As noted earlier, long-
range transport is a major source of Asian mercury in North
America.
Studies of air pollutants over southern Asia reveal a 3-km-
thick toxic cloud of ash, acids, aerosols, dust, and
photochemi- cal reactants that regularly covers the entire Indian
subcontinent and can last for much of the year. Nobel laureate
Paul Crutzen estimates that up to 2 million people in India alone
die each year from atmospheric pollution. Produced by forest
fires, the burn- ing of agricultural wastes, and dramatic increases
in the use of fossil fuels, the Asian smog layer cuts by up to 15
percent the amount of solar energy reaching the earth’s surface
beneath it. Meteorologists suggest that the cloud—80 percent of
which is human-made—could disrupt monsoon weather patterns
and may be disturbing rainfall and reducing rice harvests over
much of South Asia. As UN Environment Programme executive
director Klaus Töpfer said, “There are global implications
because a pol- lution parcel like this, which stretches 3 km high,
can travel half way round the globe in a week.”
An increase in monitoring activity has revealed industrial
contaminants in places usually considered among the cleanest in
the world. Samoa, Greenland, Antarctica, and the North Pole all
have heavy metals, pesticides, and radioactive elements in
their air. Since the 1950s, pilots flying in the high Arctic have
reported dense layers of reddish-brown haze clouding the arctic
atmosphere. Aerosols of sulfates, soot, dust, and toxic heavy
metals, such as vanadium, manganese, and lead, travel to the pole
from the indus- trialized parts of Europe and Russia.
A process called “grasshopper” transport, or atmosphere
distil- lation, helps deliver contaminants to the poles. Volatile
EXPLORING SCIENCE
The Great London Smog and Pollution Monitoring
London was once legendary for its pea-soup Thousands died, especially the ill and attempted (and failed). Pollution was normal,
fogs. In the days of Charles Dickens and Sher- elderly. Hospitals filled with victims of bron- too pervasive to change. The crisis of 1952
lock Holmes, darkened skies and blackened chitis, pneumonia, lung inflammations, and pushed the city to come up with new policies.
buildings, saturated with soot from hundreds heart failure. Patients’ lungs were clogged by Coal fireplaces were phased out, replaced
of thousands of coal-burning fireplaces, were smoke and microscopic soot particles, their with oil burners. In 1956, Parliament passed
a fact of life. Londoners had been accustomed lips turned blue, and many asphyxiated due to a Clean Air Act, and in 1968 the act was
to filthy air since the Industrial Revolution, lack of oxygen. strengthened and expanded to address addi-
but over a period of four days in 1952 they A temperature inversion initiated the cri- tional industrial emissions. The United States,
experienced the worst air pollution disaster sis. Normally, atmospheric circulation moves watching closely, adopted a Clean Air Act in
on record, which helped dramatically change polluted air away from the city and out over the 1963, with major amendments in 1970.
approaches to air pollution. countryside. Stable inversions, with cold air rest- These laws would not be possible with-
On a cold afternoon in early December ing near the ground, can be unpleasantly out good quality air monitoring data. As with
1952, a dense blanket of coal smoke and fog chilly and damp. In this case, the inversion any environmental policy, regular and reliable
settled on the city. Because it was a cold day, trapped coal dust particulates and tiny collection of data is a first requirement for
home coal burners and industrial furnaces droplets of sul- furic acid (from sulfur in coal) setting emissions limits. Atmospheric chem-
began pumping out smoke at full force. During in the city. ists can then compare observed sulfur diox-
the afternoon, visibility plummeted and traffic After four days, a change in the weather ide levels, for example, to acceptable health
came to a halt as drivers were blinded by the brought fresh winds into London, and the inver- limits (fig. 1b). Epidemiologists can tie rates
smoke and fog. Hundreds of cattle at a cattle sion dissipated. At least 4,700 deaths were of hospitalization and deaths to high levels of
market were the first to go. With lungs black- attributable to air pollution during and imme- sulfur dioxide in the air. Monitoring data make
ened by soot, they suffocated while standing diately after the inversion. More-recent studies it possible to justify and legally defend emis-
in their pens. Concerts were canceled because have found that lingering ailments killed perhaps sions limits. Legal enforcement of rules is the
of blackened air in the halls, and books in the another 8,000 in the months that followed, main reason the events of London in 1952
British Museum were tainted with soot. Visibil- bringing the total death toll to over 12,000. are now, for many places, fading into history
ity fell to one foot in some places by the third London had been debating what to do
day of the inversion (fig. 1a). about air pollution for centuries, since at
least 1300, when controls on smoke were
4 1,000
Fog
Concentration of sulfur dioxide (SO2), mg/m3

Deaths

3 750

Deaths
2 500

Sulfur
dioxide

1 250

EPA standard
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Date
(a) (b)

FIGURE 1 Sulfur dioxide was a major cause of deaths during the London smog of December 1952 (a). During this event, sulfur dioxide levels reached 2 mg/m3 of air,
well above the EPA standard limit of 0.08 mg/m3 (dashed line, (b))
a. © Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
 Pollution of the Atmosphere
Land areas with significant acid
precipitation
Land areas with significant
atmospheric pollution
Land areas with significant acid
precipitation and atmospheric
pollution
Land areas of secondary
atmospheric pollution
0 1000 2000 Miles
Air pollution plume: average wind Scale: 1 to 138,870,000
0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers
direction and force
Wind blows in the direction of the tapered end of
the air pollution plume and the force of the wind is
indicated by the size of the plume.

FIGURE 16.17 Long-range transport carries air pollution from source regions thousands of kilometers away into formerly pristine areas. Secondary air
pollutants can be formed by photochemical reactions far from primary emissions sources.
then condense and precipitate in cooler regions (fig. 16.18). Over known population except victims of industrial accidents. Far from
several years, contaminants accumulate in the coldest places, gen- any source of this industrial by-product, these people accumulate
erally at high latitudes where they bioaccumulate in food chains. PCBs from the flesh of fish, caribou, and other animals they eat.
Whales, polar bears, sharks, and other top carnivores in polar
regions have been shown to have dangerously high levels of pesti- Chlorine destroys ozone in the stratosphere
cides, metals, and other HAPs in their bodies. The Inuit people of
Broughton Island, well above the Arctic Circle, have higher levels Ozone near the ground is a pollutant because it irritates living tis-
of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in their blood than any sues and contributes to smog. Far out in the stratosphere,
other however, ozone absorbs harmful ultraviolet (UV) solar energy,
high-energy wavelengths that can damage plant and animal
Atmosphere tissues, including the eyes and the skin. Stratospheric ozone
provides a critical pro- tective shield against UV radiation.
In 1985, the British Antarctic Atmospheric Survey
announced a startling and disturbing discovery: Stratospheric
ozone concen- trations over the South Pole were dropping
precipitously during September and October every year as the
Equator sun reappeared at the end of the long polar winter (fig. 16.19).
This ozone depletion has been occurring at least since the 1960s
but was not recognized because earlier researchers programmed
their instruments to ignore changes in ozone levels that were
presumed to be erroneous.
Chlorine-based aerosols, especially chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) and other halon gases, are the principal agents of ozone
depletion. Nontoxic, nonflammable, chemically inert, and cheaply
FIGURE 16.18 Air pollutants evaporate from warmer areas and then produced, CFCs were extremely useful as industrial gases and in
condense and precipitate in cooler regions. Eventually, this “grasshopper” refrigerators, air conditioners, Styrofoam inflation, and aerosol
redistribution leads to accumulation in the Arctic and Antarctic. spray cans for many years. From the 1930s until the 1980s, CFCs
Source: NASA were used all over the world and widely dispersed through the
atmosphere.
 Table 16.3 Stratospheric Ozone Destruction by
Chlorine Atoms and UV Radiation
Step Products
1. CFCl3 (chlorofluorocarbon) + UV energy CFCl2 + Cl
2. Cl + O3 ClO + O2
3. O2 + UV energy 2O
4. ClO + 2O O2 + Cl
5. Return to step 2

averaged 40 percent below normal. Ozone depletion has been

observed over the North Pole as well, although it is not as
concen- trated as that in the south.

The Montreal Protocol was a resounding

success
The discovery of stratospheric ozone losses brought about a
remarkably quick international response. In 1987, an international
meeting in Montreal, Canada, produced the Montreal Protocol,
FIGURE 16.19 The region of stratospheric ozone depletion grew steadily
2
the first of several major international agreements on phasing
out most use of CFCs by 2000. As evidence accumulated, show-
ing that losses were larger and more widespread than previously
to an area of nearly 30 million km in 2006 (shown here). This ozone “hole”
thought, the deadline for the elimination of all CFCs (halons,
has shown signs of decline since the Montreal Protocol went into effect.
Source: NASA
carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform) was moved up
to
1996, and a $500 million fund was established to assist poorer
What we often call an ozone “hole” is really a vast area of countries in switching to non-CFC technologies. Fortunately,
reduced concentrations of ozone in the stratosphere. The thinning alternatives to CFCs for most uses already exist. The first substi-
happens in the early Antarctic spring: Antarctica’s exceptionally tutes are hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), which release much
cold winter temperatures (–85 to –90°C) help break down ozone.
During the long, dark winter months, strong winds circle the pole, 1.1
isolating Antarctic air and allowing stratospheric temperatures to
drop low enough to create ice crystals at high altitudes— 1.0
something that rarely happens elsewhere in the world. Ozone and 0.9
chlorine- containing molecules are absorbed on the surfaces of
Millions of tons

these ice par- ticles. When the sun returns in the spring, it 0.8
provides energy to liberate chlorine ions, which readily bond with
0.7
ozone, breaking it down to molecular oxygen (table 16.3). It is
only during the Antarc- tic spring (September through December) 0.6
that conditions are ideal for rapid ozone destruction. During that
season, temperatures are still cold enough for high-altitude ice 0.5
CFCs
crystals, but the sun gradually becomes strong enough to drive
0.4
photochemical reactions.
As the Antarctic summer arrives, temperatures moderate, the 0.3
circumpolar vortex breaks down, and air from warmer latitudes
mixes with Antarctic air, replenishing ozone concentrations in the 0.2
HFCs
ozone hole. Slight decreases worldwide result from this mixing, HCFCs
0.1
however. Ozone re-forms naturally, but not nearly as fast as it is
destroyed. Because the chlorine atoms are not themselves con- 0.0
sumed in reactions with ozone, they continue to destroy ozone for 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002
years. Eventually, they can precipitate out, but this process hap- Year
pens very slowly in the stable stratosphere. FIGURE 16.20 The Montreal Protocol has been remarkably success-
About 10 percent of all stratospheric ozone worldwide has ful in eliminating CFC production. The remaining HFC and HCFC use is
been destroyed in recent years, and levels over the Arctic primarily in developing countries, such as China and India.
have
less chlorine per molecule. These HCFCs are also being phased
∙ Lung tissues are vulnerable to acids and particulates.
out, as newer halogen-free alternatives are developed.
The Montreal Protocol is often cited as the most effective ∙ Sulfur and nitrogen produce acidic deposition.
international environmental agreement ever established. Global Air pollution is a problem of widespread interest because it
CFC production has been cut by more than 95 percent since 1988 affects so many parts of our lives. The most obvious effects are
(fig. 16.20). Some of that has been replaced by HCFCs, which on our health. Damage to infrastructure, vegetation, and aesthetic
release chlorine, but not as much as CFCs. The amount of quality—especially visibility—are also important considerations.
chlorine entering the atmosphere already has begun to decrease. The World Health Organization estimates that some 5 to 6
The size of the ozone “hole” increased steadily from its mil- lion people die prematurely every year from illnesses related
discov- ery until the mid-1990s, when the Montreal Protocol to air
began having an effect. Since then, it has varied from year to year,
but the trend has been to stabilize or decrease in recent years. In
one of the world’s most remarkable success stories, stratospheric
O3 levels should be back to normal by about 2049. There is
variation in this trend, how- ever. The 2006 ozone hole was the
largest ever. Ironically, climate warming (heat retention) in the
lower atmosphere has contributed to cooling in the stratosphere.
This cooling increases ice crystal forma- tion over the Antarctic
and results in more ozone depletion.
The Montreal Protocol had an added benefit in slowing
climate change, because CFCs and other ozone-destroying gases
are also powerful greenhouse gases (see fig. 16.12). Reductions in
emissions of these gases under the Montreal Protocol amount to
one-quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This
reduction has had a greater impact on climate-changing gases than
the Kyoto Protocol.
There’s another interesting connection to climate change.
Under the Montreal Protocol, China, India, Korea, and Argentina
were allowed to continue to produce 72,000 tons (combined) of
CFCs per year until 2010. Most of the funds appropriated through
the Montreal Protocol are going to these countries to help them
phase out CFC production and destroy their existing stocks.
Because CFCs are potent greenhouse gases, this phase-out also
makes these countries eligible for credits in the climate trading
market. In 2006, nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas
emissions credits traded internationally were for HFC-23
elimination, and almost half of all payments went to China. Some
critics think this is double-dipping; others argue that it doesn’t
matter if serious risks are being reduced.

Section Review
1. What is an atmospheric temperature inversion, and why is it a
problem?
2. What is the difference between ambient and stratospheric ozone?
What is destroying stratospheric ozone?
3. What did the Montreal Protocol aim to accomplish?

16.3 Effects of Air Pollution

pollution. Heart attacks, respiratory diseases, and lung cancer all Diesel engines have long been a major source of both soot
are significantly higher in people who breathe dirty air, and SO2 in the United States (fig. 16.21). Until 2006, diesel-
compared to matching groups in cleaner environments. Residents powered engines were allowed to use fuel that was up to 3,400
of the most polluted cities in the United States, for example, are parts per
15 to 17 percent more likely to die of these illnesses than those in
cities with the cleanest air. This can mean as much as a five- to
ten-year decrease in life expectancy for those who live in the
worst parts of Los Angeles or Baltimore, compared to a place with
clean air. Of course, the likelihood of suffering ill health from air
pollutants depends on the intensity and duration of exposure, as
well as the age of the person and their prior health status.
In industrialized countries, one of the biggest health threats
from air pollution is from soot or fine particulate material.
We once thought that particles smaller than 10 micrometers
(10 millionths of a meter) were too small to be trapped in the
lungs. Now we know that fine PM2.5 particles (less than 2.5
microme- ters in diameter) pose even greater risks than coarse
particles. They have been linked with heart attacks, asthma,
bronchitis, lung cancer, immune suppression, and abnormal fetal
development, among other health problems. Fine particulates
have many sources. Until recently, power plants were the largest
source, but clean air rules will require power plants to install
filters and precipitators to remove at least 70 percent of their
particulate emissions.
The U.S. EPA estimates that at least 160 million Americans—
more than half the population—live in areas with unhealthy FIGURE 16.21 Soot and fine particulate material from diesel
concen- trations of fine particulate matter. PM2.5 levels have engines, wood stoves, power plants, and other combustion sources have
decreased about been linked to asthma, heart attacks, and a variety of other diseases.
30 percent over the past 25 years, but health conditions will © McGraw-Hill Education/John Thoeming, photographer
improve if we can make further reductions.
million sulfur. In 2006, the allowable limit was cut to 500 ppm Bronchial muscle Bronchial muscle
sul- fur, and by 2010, the EPA phased in rules requiring that in spasm
trucks, buses, and cars use ultra-low-sulfur fuel, with sulfur
concentra- tions of less than 15 ppm. This dramatic reduction in
sulfur also allows the use of advanced emission control
technology in engines, further reducing health risks and odors of
diesel emissions. These standards now also apply to off-road
vehicles, such as tractors, bull- dozers, locomotives, and barges, Bronchial tube
whose engines previously emitted more soot than all the nation’s
cars, trucks, and buses together. Buildup of mucus in
the bronchial tube

How does pollution make us sick?

The most common route of exposure to air pollutants is by inha-
lation, but direct absorption through the skin or contamination
of food and water also are important pathways. Because they are
strong oxidizing agents, sulfates, SO2, NOx, and O3 act as irritants Normal alveoli Overinflated alveoli
that damage delicate tissues in the eyes and respiratory passages. due to trapped air
Fine particulates, irritants in their own right, penetrate deep into
the lungs and carry metals and other HAPs on their surfaces. the lungs through damaged tissues that the victim actually
Inflammatory responses set in motion by these irritants impair drowns.
lung function and trigger cardiovascular problems as the heart Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin and decreases the abil-
tries to compensate for lack of oxygen by pumping faster and ity of red blood cells to carry oxygen. Asphyxiants such as this
harder. If the irritation is really severe, so much fluid seeps into cause headaches, dizziness, and heart stress, and can be lethal if
concentra- tions are high enough. Lead also binds to hemoglobin,
reducing its oxygen-carrying capacity at high levels. At lower FIGURE 16.22 Bronchitis and emphysema can result in constriction of
levels, lead causes long-term damage to critical neurons in the airways and permanent damage to tiny, sensitive air sacs called alveoli,
brain that results in men- tal and physical impairment and where oxygen diffuses into blood vessels.
developmental retardation.
Some important chronic health effects of air pollutants include
bronchitis and emphysema. Bronchitis is a persistent at Sudbury. Sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid released by this
process caused massive destruction of the plant commu-
inflammation of bronchi and bronchioles (large and small airways nity within about 30 km of the smelter. Rains washed away the
in the lung) that causes mucus buildup, a painful cough, and exposed soil, leaving a barren moonscape of blackened bedrock
involuntary muscle spasms that constrict airways. Severe (fig. 16.20a). Super-tall, 400-m smokestacks were installed in the
bronchitis can lead to emphy- sema, an irreversible chronic 1950s, and sulfur scrubbers were added 20 years later. Emissions
obstructive lung disease in which airways become permanently were reduced by 90 percent and the surrounding ecosystem is
constricted and alveoli are damaged or even destroyed. Stagnant beginning to recover (fig. 16.23b).
air trapped in blocked airways swells the tiny air sacs in the lung There are two probable ways that air pollutants damage
(alveoli), blocking blood circulation. As cells die from lack of plants. They can be directly toxic, damaging sensitive cell
oxygen and nutrients, the walls of the alveoli break down, creating membranes much as irritants do in human lungs. Within a few
large empty spaces incapable of gas exchange (fig. 16.22). days of expo- sure to toxic levels of oxidants, mottling
Thickened walls of the bronchioles lose elasticity, and breathing (discoloration) occurs in leaves due to chlorosis (bleaching of
becomes more difficult. Victims of emphysema make a chlorophyll), and then necrotic (dead) spots develop (see fig.
characteristic whistling sound when they breathe. Often, they need 16.5). If injury is severe, the whole plant may be killed.
supplementary oxygen to make up for reduced respiratory Sometimes these symptoms are so distinctive that positive
capacity. identification of the source of damage is possible. Often,
however, the symptoms are vague and difficult to separate from
Plants suffer cell damage and lost productivity diseases or insect damage.
Certain combinations of environmental factors have
Uncontrolled industrial fumes from furnaces, smelters, refineries, synergistic effects in which the injury caused by exposure to two
and chemical plants destroy vegetation and have created deso- factors together is more than the sum of exposure to each factor
late, barren landscapes around mining and manufacturing centers. individually. For instance, when white pine seedlings are exposed
The copper–nickel smelter at Sudbury, Ontario, is a spectacular to subthreshold concentrations of ozone and sulfur dioxide indi-
and notorious example of air pollution effects on vegetation and vidually, no visible injury occurs. If the same concentrations of
ecosystems. In 1886, the corporate ancestor of the International pollutants are given together, however, visible damage
Nickel Company (INCO) began open-bed roasting of sulfide ores occurs. In alfalfa, however, SO2 and O3 together cause less
damage than either one alone. These complex interactions point
out the unpre- dictability of future effects of pollutants.

Acid deposition damages ecosystems

Most people in the United States became aware of problems
associ- ated with acid deposition (the deposition of wet acidic
solutions or dry acidic particles from the air) within the last
decade or so, but
(a) 1975 (b) 2005
FIGURE 16.23 In 1975, acid precipitation from the copper–nickel smelters (tall stacks in background) had killed all the vegetation and charred the
pink granite bedrock black for a large area around Sudbury, Ontario (a). By 2005, forest cover was growing again, although the rock surfaces remain
burned black (b).
© William P. Cunningham
English scientist Robert Angus Smith coined the term acid rain in to about 5.0. This level of acidification also can disrupt the food
his studies of air chemistry in Manchester, England, in the 1850s. chain by killing aquatic plants, insects, and invertebrates on
By the 1940s, it was known that pollutants, including atmospheric which fish depend for food. At pH levels below 5.0, adult fish die
acids, could be transported long distances by wind currents. This as well. Trout, salmon, and other game fish are usually the most
was thought to be only an academic curiosity until it was shown sensitive. Carp, gar, suckers, and other less desirable fish are
that precipitation of these acids can have far-reaching ecological more resistant.
effects. In the early 1970s, evidence began to accumulate suggesting
We describe acidity in terms of pH (see chapter 3). Values that air pollutants were acidifying many lakes in North America.
below Studies in the Adirondack Mountains of New York revealed that
7 are acidic, while those above 7 are basic. Normal, unpolluted rain about half of the high-altitude lakes (above 1,000 m or 3,300 ft)
generally has a pH of about 5.6 due to carbonic acid created by were acidified and had no fish. Areas showing lake damage cor-
CO2 in air. Sulfur, chlorine, and other elements also form acidic related closely with average pH levels in precipitation (fig.
com- pounds as they are released in sea spray, volcanic emissions, 16.24).
and bio- logical decomposition. These sources can lower
the pH of rain well below 5.6. Other factors, such
as alkaline dust can raise it above 7. In industrial-
ized areas, anthropogenic acids in the air usually
far outweigh those from natural sources.
Aquatic Effects Lakes and streams can be
especially sensitive to acid deposition, especially
where vegetation or bedrock makes them
naturally acidic to start with. This problem was Lab pH
first pub- licized in Scandinavia, which receives >5.3
industrial and automobile emissions—principally 5.2–5.3
5.1–5.2
H2SO4 and HNO3—generated in northwestern 5.0–5.1
4.9–5.0
Europe. The thin, acidic soils and oligotrophic 4.8–4.9
4.7–4.8
lakes and streams in the mountains of southern 4.6–4.7
Norway and Sweden have been severely affected 4.5–4.6
4.4–4.5
by this acid deposition. Some 18,000 lakes in 4.3–4.4
<4.3
Sweden are now so acidic that they will no
longer support game fish or other sensitive
aquatic organisms.
Generally, reproduction is the most sensi- FIGURE 16.24 Acid precipitation over the United States in 2000. Many areas have improved
tive stage in fish life cycles. The eggs and young markedly since then, because of the new rules on sulfur dioxide emissions and other pollutants.
of many species are killed when the pH drops Source: National Acid Depositions Program
Some 48,000 lakes in Ontario are currently endangered, and FIGURE 16.25 A Fraser fir forest on Mount Mitchell, North Carolina,
nearly all of Quebec’s surface waters, including about 1 million killed by acid rain, insect pests, and other stressors.
© William P. Cunningham
lakes, are believed to be highly sensitive to acid deposition.
Forest Damage In the early 1980s, disturbing reports appeared
of rapid forest declines in both Europe and North America. One
of the earliest was a detailed ecosystem inventory on Camel’s
Hump Mountain in Vermont. A 1980 survey showed that seedling
pro- duction, tree density, and the viability of spruce-fir forests at
high elevations had declined about 50 percent in 15 years. A
similar situation was found on Mount Mitchell in North Carolina,
where almost all red spruce and Fraser fir above 2,000 m (6,000
ft) are in a severe decline. Nearly all the trees are losing needles
and about half of them are dead (fig. 16.25). The stress of acid
rain and fog, other air pollutants, and attacks by an invasive insect
called the woody aldegid are killing the trees.
Many European countries reported catastrophic forest
destruc- tion in the 1980s. It still isn’t clear what caused this
injury. In the longest-running forest-ecosystem monitoring record
in North America, researchers at the Hubbard Brook
Experimental For- est in New Hampshire have shown that forest
soils have become depleted of natural buffering reserves of basic
cations such as calcium and magnesium through years of
exposure to acid rain. Replacement of these cations by hydrogen
and aluminum ions seems to be one of the main causes of plant
mortality.
Buildings and Monuments In cities throughout the world, some
of the oldest and most glorious buildings and works of art are
being destroyed by air pollution. Smoke and soot coat buildings,
paintings, and textiles. Limestone and marble are destroyed by
atmospheric acids at an alarming rate. The Parthenon in Athens,
the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Colosseum in Rome, frescoes and
statues in Florence,
 pigments disappear and the glass literally crumbles away.
Restoration costs for this one building alone are estimated at up to
3 billion euros (U.S. $4 billion).
Air pollution also damages ordinary buildings and structures.
Corroding steel in reinforced concrete weakens buildings, roads,
and bridges. Paint and rubber deteriorate due to oxidation.
Limestone, marble, and some kinds of sandstone flake and
crumble. The Council on Environmental Quality estimates that
U.S. economic losses from architectural damage caused by air
pollution amount to about $4.8 bil- lion in direct costs and $5.2
billion in property value losses each year.

Section Review
1. List several illnesses that are made worse by dirty air.
2. Explain the idea of “synergistic effects.”
3. What is acid deposition? Identify two of the pollutants that cause it.

FIGURE 16.26 Atmospheric acids, especially sulfuric and nitric acids,

have almost completely eaten away the face of this medieval statue. Each 16.4 Pollution Control
year, the total loss from air pollution damage to buildings and materials
amounts to billions of dollars. ∙ Pollutants can be captured after production or
© Ryan McGinnis/Alamy Stock Photo avoided.
∙ Clean air legislation has reduced CO and SO4 but not NOx.
medieval cathedrals in Europe (fig. 16.26), and the Lincoln ∙ Data show that the CAA has saved money and has not dimin-
Memorial and Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., are ished economic growth.
slowly dissolv- ing and flaking away because of acidic fumes in
the air. Medieval stained glass windows in Cologne’s gothic “Dilution is the solution to pollution” was our main approach to
cathedral are so porous from etching by atmospheric acids that air pollution control for most of history. Tall smokestacks were
built to send emissions far from the source, where they became
unidentifiable and largely untraceable. But dispersed and diluted Every few days or weeks, the bags are opened to remove the dust
pollutants are now the source of some of our most serious pollu- cake. Electrostatic precipitators are the most common particulate
tion problems. We are finding that there is no “away” to which controls in power plants. Ash particles pick up an electrostatic
we can throw our waste products. Although most of the surface charge as they
discussion in this section focuses on industrial solutions, each of
us can make important personal contributions to this effort (see
the What Can You Do? box below).
Because most air pollution in the developed world is associ-
Reducing
ated Pollution
with transportation andand
energySaving Energy
production, the most effective What Can You Do?
strategies involve conservation and renewable energy. Reducing
∙ Reduce your electric power and fossil fuel demands: Aim to live
electricity consumption, insulating homes and offices, and devel-
where you can carpool, bike, walk, and use public transport. Buy
oping better public transportation could all greatly reduce air pol-
energy-efficient appliances.
lution. Alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power,
∙ Write to your representatives and ask them to support a transition to
produce energy with little or no pollution, and these and other
an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy.
technologies are becoming increasingly available (see chapter
∙ Avoid spray-can products. Household products expose you
20). directly
In addition to conservation, pollution control technology can
to hazardous pollutants.
cap- ture pollutants at the source.
∙ Buy clothes that can be washed rather than dry-cleaned: Dry clean-
ers are important sources of VOCs.
Pollutants can betwo-cycle
∙ Don’t buy polluting captured after
gasoline lawncombustion
mowers, boat motors,
or other small
Particulate engines. involves
removal filtering air emissions.
∙ If green-pricing
Filters optionsinare
trap particulates a available
mesh of incotton
your area, buyspun
cloth, renewable
glass
energy.
fibers, or asbestos-cellulose. Industrial air filters are generally
∙ Ifbags
giant your home
10 tohas
15 amfireplace,
long andinstall
2 toa high-efficiency, clean-burning,
3 m wide. Effluent gas is
blowntwo-stage
throughinsert
the that
bag,conserves
much likeenergy
the and
bag reduces pollutioncleaner.
on a vacuum up to
90 percent.
∙ Have your car tuned every 10,000 miles (16,000 km), and make
sure that its anti-smog equipment is working properly. Turn off
your engine when idling longer than one minute.
pass between large electrodes in the effluent stream (fig. 16.27). Switching to low-sulfur fuels is the surest way to reduce
Charged particles then collect on an oppositely charged collecting sulfur emissions: from soft coal with a high sulfur content to low-
plate. These precipitators consume a large amount of electricity, sulfur coal, or from coal to oil or gas or renewable energy. We
but maintenance is relatively simple, and collection efficiency can often use high-sulfur coal for political or economical reasons. In
be as high as 99 percent. The ash collected by both of these tech- the United States, most high-sulfur coal is produced in
niques is a solid waste (often hazardous due to the heavy metals Appalachia, a region with chronic poverty but substantial political
and other trace components of coal or other ash source) and must influence. China, similarly, has long relied on sulfur-rich
be buried in landfills or other solid-waste disposal sites. domestic coal. Both the U.S. and China have begun switching
Sulfur removal is important because sulfur oxides are among to lower-sulfur coal, and to cleaner oil or gas, but the change
the most damaging of all air pollutants in terms of human health takes time. Sulfur emissions from transportation have been
and ecosystem impacts. As with particulate matter, sulfur dioxide reduced by new rules requiring low- sulfur diesel fuel.
can be captured after combustion, or fuel (especially coal) can be Nitrogen oxides (NOx) can be reduced in both internal com-
cleaned before burning. Coal can be crushed, washed, and bustion engines and industrial boilers by as much as 50 percent
gasified to remove sulfur and metals before combustion. These by carefully controlling the flow of air and fuel. Staged burners,
processes cost money, but when sulfur is captured from fuels, it for
can also be sold as a useful industrial product. Elemental sulfur,
sulfuric acid, and ammonium sulfate can all be produced using
catalytic con- verters to oxidize or reduce sulfur. − − − −
−
Clean
+ + + flue gas
+ +

Separator
plates

Particle-laden
flue gas Electrodes

Fly ash to the

storage silo

FIGURE 16.27 An electrostatic precipitator can remove 99 percent of

unburned particulates in the effluent (smoke) from power plants.
Electrodes transfer a static electric charge to dust and smoke particles,
which then adhere to collector plates. Particles are then shaken off of the
plates and collected for reuse or disposal.
example, control burning temperatures and oxygen flow to pre- many of these emissions. In automobiles, for instance, positive
vent formation of NOx. The catalytic converter on your car uses crankcase ventilation (PCV) systems collect oil that escapes from
platinum-palladium and rhodium metals to catalyze reactions around the pistons and unburned fuel and channels them back to
that convert NOx, unburned hydrocarbons, and carbon monox- the engine for combustion. Controls on fugitive losses from
ide, to water, nitrogen gas, and carbon dioxide. Catalytic convert- indus- trial valves, pipes, and storage tanks can have a significant
ers became required on new car engines in the United States in impact on air quality. Afterburners are often the best method for
the 1980s, and EPA data shows that new vehicles today destroy- ing volatile organic chemicals in industrial exhaust
emit stacks.
96 percent less carbon monoxide, 98 percent less hydrocarbons,
and
90 percent less NOx than new vehicles in the 1970s.
Clean air legislation is controversial but
Hydrocarbon controls mainly involve complete combustion effective
or controlling evaporation. Hydrocarbons and volatile organic Since 1970, the Clean Air Act has been modified, updated, and
compounds are produced by incomplete combustion of fuels or by amended many times. Amendments have involved acrimonious
solvent evaporation from chemical factories, paints, dry cleaning, debate. As in the case of CO2 restrictions, discussed earlier,
plastic manufacturing, printing, and other industrial processes. victims of air pollution demand more protection, while industry
Closed systems that prevent escape of fugitive gases can reduce and energy groups insist that controls are too expensive. Bills
have sometimes languished in Congress for years because of Clean air protections help the economy
disputes over burdens of responsibility, cost, and definitions of
risk. The EPA reports that simply by enforcing existing clean air and public health
legislation, the United States could prevent at least 6,000 deaths Despite these disputes, the Clean Air Act has been extremely
and 140,000 asthma attacks every year. successful in saving money and lives. The EPA estimates that
The most significant amendments were in the 1990 update, between 1970 and 2014, lead emissions fell 99 percent, SO2
which addressed a variety of issues, including acid rain, urban declined 84 percent, and CO shrank 72 percent (fig. 16.28).
Filters, scrubbers, and electrostatic precipitators on power plants
and other large stationary sources are responsible for most of the
particulate and SO2 reductions. Catalytic converters on cars are
responsible for most of the CO and O3 reductions. For 23 of the
largest U.S. cities, air quality now reaches hazardous levels 93
percent less frequently than a decade ago. Forty of the 97
metropolitan areas that failed to meet clean air standards in the
1980s are now in compliance, many for the first time in a
generation.
In a 2011 study of the economic costs and benefits of the 1990
Clean Air Act, the EPA found that the direct benefits of air quality
protection by 2020 will be $2 trillion, while the direct costs of
imple- menting those protections was about one-thirtieth of that,
or $65 bil- lion (fig. 16.29). The direct benefits were mainly in
prevented costs of premature illness, death, and work losses (table
16.4). About half of the direct costs were improvements in cars
and trucks, which now burn more cleanly and efficiently than
they did in the past. This cost has been distributed to vehicle
owners, who also benefit from lower expenditures on fuel. A
quarter of costs involved cleaner fur- naces and pollutant capture
at electricity-generating power plants and other industrial
facilities. The remaining costs involved pollu- tion reductions at
smaller businesses, municipal facilities, construc- tion sites, and
other sources. Overall, emission controls have not dampened
economic productivity, despite widespread fears to the contrary.
Emissions of criteria pollutants have declined in recent decades,
whereas economic indicators have grown (fig. 16.30).

200
Millions of metric tons/year

1970
air pollution, and toxic air emissions. These amendments also 100 2014
restricted ozone-depleting chemicals in accordance with the
Montreal Protocol. 75
One of the most contested aspects of the act has been the
“new source review,” which was established in 1977. This provi-
sion was adopted because industry argued that it would be intoler- 50
ably expensive to install new pollution-control equipment on old
power plants and factories that were about to close down anyway.
Congress agreed to “grandfather” existing equipment, or exempt 25
it from new pollution limits, with the stipulation that when they
were upgraded or replaced, more stringent rules would apply. The
0
result was that owners have kept old facilities operating precisely CO NOx PM10 PM2.5 SO2 VOC
because they were exempted from pollution control. In fact, (–72%) (–55%) (58%) (–20%) (–84%) (–51%)
cor-
porations poured millions into aging power plants and factories, Forty years later, many of those grandfathered plants are still
expanding their capacity, to avoid having to build new ones.
going strong and continue to be among the biggest contributors to FIGURE 16.28 Air pollution trends in the United States, 1970 to 2014.
smog and acid deposition. Since Congress passed the Clean Air Act , most criteria air pollutants decreased
significantly, even while population has increased. Pollution protections also aid
the economy by reducing illness and creating jobs in pollution prevention.
Source: Environmental Protection Agency, 2016.

$2,000 250%
Gross
Costs 238% Domestic
$1,800
200% Product
Benefits
$1,600
Vehicle miles
172% traveled
150%
$1,400

$1,200 100%
Billions

56% Population
$1,000
50% CO2 emissions
45%
$800 Energy
27%
consumption
0%
$600
Aggregate
$400 –50% emissions
– 69% (6 common
pollutants)
$200
–100%70 80 9095 2000 2005 2010 2015
$0
2000 2010 2020 FIGURE 16.30 Comparison of growth measures and emissions of cri-
FIGURE 16.29 Direct costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act teria air pollutants, 1970–2014.
provisions by 2000, 2010, and 2020, in billions of 2006 U.S. Source: EPA, 2016
dollars. Source: EPA 2011, Clean Air Impacts Summary Report

In addition to these savings, the Clean Air Act has created School Loss Days 3,200,000 5,400,000
thousands of jobs in developing, installing, and maintaining tech- Lost Work Days 13,000,000 17,000,000
nology and in monitoring. At a time when many industries are 1
Number of cases reduced
pro- viding fewer jobs, owing to greater mechanization, jobs have Source: EPA, 2011 Clean Air Impacts Summary Report
been growing in clean technologies and pollution control and
moni- toring. At the same time, reductions in acid rain have
decreased losses to forest resources and building infrastructure.

Table 16.4 Reductions of Health Impairments

Resulting from Ozone and Particulate
Reductions Since 1990
Health Effect Reductions Year 20101 Year 20201
(PM2.5 and Ozone Only)
Adult Mortality - particles 160,000 230,000
Infant Mortality - particles 230 280
Mortality - ozone 4,300 7,100
Chronic Bronchitis 54,000 75,000
Heart Disease 130,000 200,000
Asthma Exacerbation 1,700,000 2,400,000
Emergency Room Visits 86,000 120,000
 hi
a
Market mechanisms have been part of the solution, especially and other activities. Industrial cities, such as Baltimore,
for sulfur dioxide, which is widely considered to have benefited Maryland, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, also have continuing
t
from a cap-and-trade approach. This strategy sets maximum problems. Eighty-five other urban areas are still considered
A
limits for each facility and then lets facilities sell pollution credits nonattainment regions. In spite of these local failures, however,
3
if they can cut emissions, or facilities can buy credits if they are 80 percent of the United States now meets the National Ambient
t
cheaper than installing pollution-control equipment. When trading Air Quality Standards (fig. 16.31). This improvement in air
began in 1990, economists estimated that eliminating 10 million quality is perhaps the greatest environmental success story in our
I
tons of sulfur dioxide would cost $15 billion per year. Left to find history.
a
the most economical ways to reduce emissions, however, utilities
rc
have been able to reach clean air goals for one-tenth that price. A In developinga areas, rapid growth can
serious shortcoming of this approach is that while trading has outpace pollution controls
A
resulted in overall pollution reduction, some local “hot spots”
remain where owners have found it cheaper to pay someone else to The outlook ris not so encouraging in many parts of the world. The
reduce pollution than to do it themselves. major metropolitan areas of many developing countries are
Particulate matter (mostly dust and soot) is produced by agri- growing at w
explosive rates to incredible sizes (chapter 22), and
ir
environmental
culture, fuel combustion, metal smelting, concrete manufacturing,
p

quality can be abysmal. In Mexico City, notorious for bad air, pol-
lution levels exceed WHO health standards 350 days per year, and
more than half of all city children have lead levels in their blood
high enoughc t to lower intelligence and retard development. Mexico
w industries and 2.5 million vehicles spew out more
City’s 131,000
than 5,500a tons of air pollutants daily. In Santiago, Chile,
suspended bparticulates exceed WHO standards of 90 mg/m
3

about 299 days per year. Rapid growth and industrialization in

e and many other parts of the developing world are
China, India,
producing aemissions
f much faster than pollution-control agencies
can manage.
Even pwhen laws on the books are strong, enforcement is
often weak.r In China, despite legal restrictions, many of
China’s
400,000 factories have no air pollution controls. Experts estimate
that home coal burners and factories emit 10 million tons of soot
and 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide annually and that emissions

FIGURE 16.31 Projected visibility impairments, shown with dark colors,

would be considerably worse in 2020 without the 1990 Clean Air Act
amendments (CAAA, top) than they will be with the amendments (bottom).
Units are deciviews, a measure of perceptible change in visibility.
Source: EPA 2011, Clean Air Impacts Summary Report
 ave increased rapidly over the past 20 years. Sixteen of the 20 Twenty years ago, Cubatao, Brazil, was described as the
cit- es in the world with the worst air quality are in China. “Valley of Death,” one of the most dangerously polluted places in
Shenyang, n industrial city in northern China, is thought to have the world. Every year, a steel plant, a huge oil refinery, and fertil-
the world’s worst continuing particulate problem, with peak izer and chemical factories churned out thousands of tons of air
3
winter concen- rations over 700 mg/m (nine times U.S. pol- lutants that were trapped between onshore winds and the
maximum standards). irborne particulates in Shenyang exceed uplifted
WHO standards on
47 days per year. In many Chinese cities, concentrated air pollu-
ion is linked to high incidence of cancer.
Every year the organization Pure Earth (formerly the
Blacksmith nstitute) compiles a list of the world’s worst-polluted
places. Glob- lly, smelters, mining operations, petrochemical
industries—which elease hazardous organic compounds to the air
and water—and hemical manufacturing are frequently the worst
sources of pollut- nts. Often, these are in impoverished and
developing areas of Africa, sia, or the Americas, where
government intervention is weak and egulations are nonexistent
or poorly enforced. Funds and political ill are usually unavailable
to deal with pollution, much of which is nvolved with materials
going to wealthier countries or waste that is eceived from
developed countries. You can learn more about these laces at
www.pureearth.org.
Norilsk, Russia (one site highlighted on Pure Earth’s list
of worst places), is a notorious example of toxic air pollution.
Founded in 1935 as a prison labor camp, this Siberian city is
onsidered one of the most polluted places on earth. Norilsk houses
he world’s largest nickel mine and heavy metals smelting
complex, hich discharge over 4 million tons of cadmium, copper,
lead, nickel, rsenic, selenium, and zinc into the air every year.
The snow turns lack as quickly as it falls, the air tastes of sulfur,
and the average life xpectancy for factory workers is ten years
below the Russian aver- ge (which already is the lowest of any
industrialized country). Dif- icult pregnancies and premature
births are far more common in Norilsk than elsewhere in
Russia. Children living near the nickel lant are ill twice as much
as Russia’s average, and birth defects are eported to affect up to
10 percent of the population. Why do people stay in such a place?
Many were attracted by high wages and hard-
ship pay, and now that they’re sick, they can’t afford to
move.

Air quality improves where controls

are implemented
Despite global expansion of chemical industries and other sources
of air pollution, there have been some spectacular successes in air
pollution control. Sweden and West Germany (countries affected
by forest losses due to acid precipitation) cut their sulfur
emissions by two-thirds between 1970 and 1985. Austria and
Switzerland have gone even farther, regulating even
motorcycle emissions. The Global Environmental Monitoring
System (GEMS) reports declines in particulate levels in 26 of 37
cities worldwide. Sulfur dioxide and sulfate particles, which
cause acid rain and respiratory disease, have declined in 20 of
these cities.
 plateau on which São Paulo sits (fig. 16.32). Trees died on the
sur- rounding hills. Birth defects and respiratory diseases were
alarm- ingly high. Since then, however, the citizens of Cubatao
have made remarkable progress in cleaning up their environment.
The end of military rule and the restoration of democracy allowed
residents to publicize their complaints. The environment became
an important political issue. The state of São Paulo invested about
$100 million and the private sector spent twice as much to clean
up most pollu- tion sources in the valley. Particulate pollution was
reduced 75 per- cent, ammonia emissions were reduced 97
percent, hydrocarbons that cause ozone and smog were cut 86
percent, and sulfur diox- ide production fell 84 percent. Fish are
returning to the rivers, and forests are regrowing on the
mountains. It proves that progress is possible. Similar successes
could certainly be obtained elsewhere.
Section Review
1. How are sulfur and particulate matter removed from effluent?
FIGURE 16.32 Cubatao, Brazil, was once considered one of the most 2. What is the ratio of direct costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act?
What costs are mainly saved?
polluted cities in the world. Better environmental regulations and enforcement,
along with massive investments in pollution-control equipment, have 3. Which conventional pollutants have decreased most and least?
improved air quality significantly. 4. What are some sources of air pollution in developing areas?
© William P. Cunningham

Conclusion
Air pollution is often the most obvious and widespread type of quality as bad as or worse than most cities in the developing
pollution. Everywhere on earth, from the most remote island in world now. The progress in reducing air pollution in these cities
the Pacific, to the highest peak in the Himalayas, to the frigid ice gives us hope that residents can do so elsewhere as well.
cap over the North Pole, there are traces of human-made contami- Global agreements, as well as national clean air policies, have
nants, remnants of the 2 billion metric tons of pollutants released made important progress. The success of the Montreal Protocol in
into the air worldwide every year by human activities. eliminating CFCs is a landmark in international cooperation on an
The adverse effects of air pollution include respiratory dis- environmental problem. Stratospheric ozone depletion has slowed
eases, birth defects, heart attacks, developmental disabilities in and should end in about 50 years. The Minamata Convention to
children, and cancer. Environmental impacts include the destruc- con- trol mercury is another example of important global
tion of stratospheric ozone, the poisoning of forests and waters by cooperation.
acid rain, and corrosion of building materials. Developing areas face severe challenges in air quality. Most
We have made encouraging progress in controlling air pol- of the worst air pollution in the world occurs in large cities of
lution, however, progress that has offered economic benefits as devel- oping countries. However, there are dramatic cases of
well as health benefits. Many students aren’t aware of how much pollution in developing countries. Problems that once seemed
worse air quality was in the industrial centers of North America overwhelm- ing can be overcome. In some cases, this requires
and Europe a century or two ago compared to today. Cities lifestyle changes or different ways of doing things to bring about
such as London, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, and New York progress, but as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu wrote, “A
had air journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Reviewing Key Terms

Can you define the following terms in environmental science?
acid deposition 16.3 bronchitis 16.3 chronic obstructive lung fugitive emissions 16.1
aerosols 16.1 carbon monoxide 16.1 disease 16.3 hazardous air pollutants
aesthetic degradation 16.1 chlorofluorocarbons conventional or criteria (HAPs) 16.1
ambient air 16.1 (CFCs) 16.2 pollutants 16.1 nitric oxide 16.1
nitrogen dioxide 16.1 particulate matter 16.1 stratospheric ozone 16.2 Toxic Release Inventory
nitrogen oxides 16.1 photochemical oxidants 16.1 sulfur dioxide 16.1 (TRI) 16.1
nitrous oxide 16.1 primary pollutants 16.1 synergistic effects 16.3 volatile organic compounds
ozone 16.1 secondary pollutants 16.1 temperature inversion 16.2 (VOCs) 16.1

Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions

1. What might be done to improve indoor air quality? Should 4. Developing nations claim that richer countries created global
governments mandate such changes? What values or world- warming and stratospheric ozone depletion, and therefore
views are represented by different sides of this debate? they should bear the responsibility for fixing these problems.
2. Debate the following proposition: Our air pollution blows How would you respond?
onto someone else; therefore, installing pollution controls 5. If there are thresholds for pollution effects, is it reasonable
will not bring any direct economic benefit to those of us who or wise to depend on environmental processes to disperse,
have to pay for them. assimilate, or inactivate waste products?
3. Utility managers once claimed that it would cost $1,000 per 6. How would you choose between government “command and
fish to control acid precipitation in the Adirondack lakes and control” regulations versus market-based trading programs
that it would be cheaper to buy fish for anglers than to put for air pollution control? Are there situations where one
scrubbers on power plants. Suppose that is true. Does it jus- approach would work better than the other?
tify continuing pollution?

Data Analysis
How Is the Air Quality in Your Town?
How does air quality in your area compare to that in other places?
You can examine trends in major air pollutants—both national
and local trends in your area—on the EPA’s website. The EPA is
the principal agency in charge of protecting air quality and
informing the public about the air we breathe and how healthy it
is.
Go to Connect to find a link to data and maps showing trends
in SO2 emissions since 1980. At the same site, you can see trends
in NOx, CO, lead, and other criteria pollutants. Examine national
trends, and then look at your local area on the map on the same
page to answer questions about trends in your area and to also
compare your area to others.

Examine pollutant trends in your area on the EPA website.

TO ACCESS ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR THIS CHAPTER, PLEASE VISIT CONNECT AT

www.connect.mheducation.com.
You will find LearnSmart, an adaptive learning system, Google Earth™ exercises, additional Case Studies, Data
Analysis exercises, and an interactive ebook.