With an increasing rise in the amount of industries within our society, air pollution has become a main concern with the byproducts that these factories release into the atmosphere. In industrialized regions such as China, the lack of regulation within the industry has allowed factories to release a harmful amount of toxins into the regions surrounding them. A recent report found air pollution to be the leading cause of nearly one million deaths and the reduction in over 20 million tons of crop output within the country.
These issues are driven by the release of fine pollution particles such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and aerosols. When inhaled, these particles become lodged in the blood vessels within the lungs and can cause lung disease or heart attacks over time. With China’s level of 48 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter of air, double of the world’s average of 19 micrograms, people there are inhaling twice as much pollutants as they are in other countries. This is a concern, as more countries expand their industries, more places will suffer from the air quality that people in China have been going through.
However, it will also contribute to the rise of carbon dioxide within the atmosphere, causing a rise in global temperatures and effecting ecosystems worldwide. The effects of climate change have already been evident throughout the years, rising temperatures has led many species of animals to the brink of endangerment. These species are unable to quickly adapt to the onset of change on the environment around them, because of this researchers are worried that these populations will slowly die out over time, unless we change.
Overpopulation: A Thermodynamic Approach 