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Asked by anon-177577 to Andrew, Becky, Daniel, Helen, Nicola, Urslaan on 12 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-177553, anon-177576.
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Daniel Marsh answered on 12 Jun 2018:
Air pollution is made up of a combination of man-made emissions and natural events such as forest fires, tree pollen, sea salt and desert dust storms to name a few.
In towns and cities such as London about 50% of the particles and gases come from vehicles using the roads, the rest comes from industrial processes, construction, rail and aviation, woodburning and gas boilers. Outside of these areas we have power stations and also agriculture that contributes a huge amount. We can measure the increase in nitrogen dioxide in London when fertilizer is applied to the fields in France during March!
This mix is not the same for every country around the world and some do not have much environmental regulation so a lot of pollution comes from energy production and industry.
It’s very hard to control the natural sources of pollution but we can make policy to regulate the man-made pollution to have cleaner pulic transport and reduce private car use as well as control emissions from industry and construction.
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Urslaan Chohan answered on 12 Jun 2018:
I would say keeping animals for food consumption! They release a lot of methane, and more are kept for slaughtering than would be needed if people ate more vegetables.
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Andrew Singer answered on 14 Jun 2018:
We are hooked on the use of fossil fuels for energy. The burning of fuel to get ‘stuff’ done in our work is the main driver.
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Helen Littler answered on 17 Jun 2018:
We are the main cause, either our own emissions or the ones we cause through our demands. Our ecosystem was fairly balanced but our needs keep increasing and we are consuming and emitting increasing amounts.
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