Pollution Essay: Greenhouse Gases, Pesticides, and Chemicals

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Look out your apartment/house window, a car window and what do you see? You see components of our planet, i.e., clouds, paved streets, buildings, patches of grass, rows of corn or soy beans, and business districts as well as temperate forests. And while what you do see is material and simultaneously simple and complex, it still represents a very limited picture of our planet. Unfortunately, there is strong reason to believe that what we don't see warrants our immediate and concerted attention.

Paradoxically, the planet that we inhabit is largely invisible to us. In fact, some of the most important parts of the Earth-the ones that allow us (and others) to live and breathe on this finite planet-are nearly invisible. Over the past several hundred years, scientific research and technological development has done wonders to enable us to "see" the materials, forces, and patterns that occupy and govern the Earth. Yet, despite all of these new tools (including telescopes, microscopes, and endoscopes), most of us still are not able to see the essential elements that constitute our surroundings. And since it is these components that sustain us, if we don't start "seeing" them soon we are unlikely to consider what may be happening to them as a result of current ways of life. And as long as we are not properly considering the ramifications of what we are doing, the odds are extremely small that we will manage to modify or redirect our paths in time to protect ourselves and life as we know it.

What exactly don't we see? The invisible elements are almost too numerous to mention in a paragraph, but here goes a futile attempt to cover many of them. The gases that make our planet warm enough for habitation are largely invisible. Even water vapor, the main constituent driving the greenhouse effect, is invisible, but whose existence can be inferred when it condenses as one exhales on a wintry day. The chemicals-such as dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, arsenic, DDT, and lead-that we litter our soils, atmosphere, and waterways with are also nearly invisible, especially at the concentrations that we, the users and consumers, are told are "acceptable." Microscopic particles that enter our noses and lungs-such as pollen, mold, paint, benzene, formaldehyde, pesticides, solvents, and asbestos-are also rarely seen.

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