The Growing Problem of Acid Rain
Uploaded by sls465 on Apr 19, 2007
The Growing Problem of Acid Rain
Acid rain is a great problem in our world. It causes fish and plants to die in our waters. It also it causes harm to the human race, because we eat the fish, drink the water and eat the plants that have come in contact with this rain. It is a problem that we must all face together and try to get rid of. However acid rain, on it's own, isn’t the biggest problem. It causes a larger problem such as aluminum poisoning, however, acid rain is very deadly, and the problems of it continuously surround us.
Acid rain is all the rain, snow, mist, basically precipitation that falls from the sky onto our planet that contains an unnatural acidic which is caused by today's industries. When products are manufactured, many chemicals are used to create it. However, because of the difficulty and cost of properly disposing of these products they are often emitted into the atmosphere with little or no treatment. And this is where most of the problems begin, but the term, acid rain, was first considered to be important about 20 years ago when scientists in Sweden and Norway first believed that acidic rain may be causing great ecological damage to the planet. The dilemma was that by the time scientist found the problem it was already very large, and detecting an acid lake is often quite difficult. A lake does not become acid over night, it happens over a period of many years, some times decades. The changes are usually too gradual to be noticed early.
At the beginning of the 20th century most rivers and lakes, like the river Tovdal in Norway, had not yet begun to die. However by 1926 local inspectors were noticing that many of the lakes were beginning to show signs of death with fish being found dead along the banks of these rivers. As the winters ice began to melt off more and more hundreds of dead fish (trout in particular) were being found. It was at this time that scientist began to search for the reason. As the scientists continued to work they found many piles of dead fish, up to thousands piled together. Divers were sent in to examine the bottom of the rivers. Both live and dead specimens were taken back to labs across Norway. When the...