Slide #2: Sources of Air Pollution

Air can be polluted by many sources in many ways. One is by burning carbon-rich fuels in motor vehicles, commercial boilers, and power plants. Another is by using paints, cleaning agents, and countless other products that contain volatile, petroleum-based solvents.

How pollutants affect us depends on who we are and where we live: our age, genetic inheritance, general state of health, and by our exposure to a variety of harmful pollution sources.

As a general rule, children and older adults are more vulnerable to air pollution than others. Children breathe more air per pound of body weight. They tend to be more active outdoors, on the school playground or in city parks. The lungs of infants and small children are still developing.

Older adults may experience lowering of their immune and respiratory defenses as they age. Their lungs may be injured from previous exposure to pollution or tobacco smoke.

But everyone, even the youngest and healthiest, is vulnerable to air pollution.

America has made a lot of progress reducing air pollution from power plants and other sources. But much work remains to be done. More than half the nation’s population lives in counties with air polluted by ultra-fine particles and low-level ozone.

A key issue is not that air is necessarily getting dirtier, but that recent research shows that certain types of pollution cause more health harm than was earlier thought.

There are moral and economic reasons for reducing air pollution.

Air pollution infringes on individual freedom. No one has the right to impose harmful substances on our bodies without our consent.

Air pollution harms the economy through premature deaths, hospitalizations, and lost workdays.

Air pollution issues can be very complex. They involve atmospheric chemistry and physics, human physiology, and ecological sciences. Regulatory policy issues are as complex as the science.

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