Acid Rain

Title	Acid Rain
# of Words	1092
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.37

Acid Rain

Acid Rain

     As the century past, the industrial society kept advancing.  However,
many advantages of the industrial society brings us also has a down side.  One
of the adverse effects of industrialization is acid deposition due to power
plant, fossil fuel and automobile emissions.   Acid rain is the popular term but
the scientists prefer the term acid deposition.  Acid rain can have adverse
effects on the environment by damaging forests or by lowering the pH of the
lakes and making the water too acidic for many aquatic plants and animals to
live.

     The father of acid rain research is an Englishman named Charles Angus
Smith who suggested in, 1852, that sulfuric acid in Manchester, English, was
causing metal to rust and dyed goods to fade.  One  source that causes acid rain
are fossil fuel.  Fossil fuel has many usage in our society.  Such as to power
electric power plants, industrial boilers, smelters, businesses, schools, homes
and vehicles of all sort.  These various energy sources contribute 23.1 million
tons of sulfur dioxide and 20.5 million tons of nitrogen oxides to our
atmosphere worldwide.  When fossil fuels are ignited like oil and coal, they
release carbon dioxide, a so-called greenhouse gas that traps heat within the
earth's atmosphere which causes global warming that is taking place right now.
Also, it releases sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and various metals (mercury,
aluminum) that are released  into the atmosphere that reacts with other airborne
chemicals (water vapor and sunlight) to produce sulfuric and nitric acid which
later can be carried long distance from their source and be deposited as rain
(acid rain) but acid doesn't just came from rain but also in the forms of snow,
hail, fog, and mist.

Forests are a complex ecosystems that involves trees, soil, water, the air,
climate and other living organisms that support the community of wildlife:
animals, birds, insects and plants and also a major economic resource.  The
countries hardest effected by acid rain is in the European countries, yet
central Europe face a much greater threat  since it has a large amount of
forest area and about 8% of German's forest face the lethal effect of
Waldsterben or forest death  of acid rain. Acid rain kill about 50 million
hectares of forest that have been damaged in Europe and in Central and Eastern
Europe's thousands of tons of pollution each year that 14,000 lakes are unable
to support sensitive aquatic life.  Acid rain does not kill trees outright but
weakens them to the point where they become susceptible to extremes of heat or
cold, attacks from blight-causing or from inserts such as the gypsy moth, and
other environmental stresses. The problem of acid rain is caused by burning of
fossil fuel that emits SO2 and  industrial factories from the North America that
emits pollution that travels to Europe.   Acid rain is now becoming a growing
problem in Third World countries such as China and India due to rapidly
expanding populations where energy demands are increasing.  Thus, the rate of
fossil fuel consumption have greatly increased and where pollution controls are
all non-existent have greatly to their problems with acid rain.  Yet, most
emissions are primarily located in eastern North America, Europe, and China.
That is why acid rain is so threatening because it is concentrated and it has a
devastating effect on soil because most of the trees get their nutrients from
soil, which lakes, ponds, streams, and other waterways, whi...

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